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I I 

« ADDRESSES AT THE BANQUET OF THE EMPIRE STATE SOCIETY OF $ 

*ct kg. 

| THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 

| NOVEMBER 26th, 1906. | 

* SERMON BY REV. FRANK OLIVER HALL, D. D., CHAPLAIN OF THE £• 

I SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 24th, 1907. fr 

| ADDRESS BY ALLEN C. THOMAS, A. M., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, | 
HAVERFORD COLLEGE, HAVERFORD, PA., MARCH 19th, 1907. 










I 



OPENING ADDRESS 

OF 

MR. W. A. MARBLE, 

President of the Empire State Society S. A. R. 

Members of the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American 
Revolution, your Wives and Sweethearts, and our Honored Guests, we 
extend to you to-night a most hearty welcome to this, the seventeenth, 
annual banquet of our Society. 

It has been the custom of our organization to hold its annual banquet 
on the anniversary of some important event in the history of the Ameri- 
can Revolution, and, keeping up that custom, we have in this instance 
given this banquet on the 123d anniversary of the evacuation of the City 
of New York by the British troops. To be absolutely and historically 
correct, I ought to say that the anniversary occurred yesterday ; but, ow- 
ing to the fact that many of us, born under Puritanical influences, did not 
feel that it was well to mix our social duties with our religious duties, it 
was thought best not to have the banquet on Sunday night; and there 
was another reason. I have on my left — I am supposed to have, one of 
them is gone — a coterie of three members of the clerical profession, and 
if we had our banquet on Sunday night, they could not be with us. 

I perhaps ought to say of our clerical friends that being placed on the 
left is only a coincidence. The Banquet Committee assure me that when 
they placed the ministers of the Gospel on the left they did not in any 
way refer to the 25th chapter of Matthew, the 33d and 41st verses. It 
will not be necessary for me to explain to any member of the Empire 
State Society what those verses are, but it is possible that some of our 
invited guests may not be entirely familiar with Biblical history, and I 
would say, by way of explanation, that the passages referred to are those 
in which the sheep are divided from the goats, and in verse 41 it is told 
what disposition is made of the goats. (Laughter.) 

Our organization, several years ago, started a revolution on its own 
account — true to the spirit of its ancestors — by inviting the ladies to par- 
take in our festivities, and that that revolution has ended in success is 
thoroughly evidenced by the jolly company that I see before me to-night; 
and I would say in explanation that, in starting this revolution and in- 

1 



viting the ladies, we have in no way infered with the work of our 
sister society, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and that they 
are in perfect harmony with us is evidenced by the fact that we have with 
us the smiling personality of the President of the National Society of the 
Daughters of the American Revolution. (Applause.) 

This is indeed to us, compatriots, a happy occasion ; and yet to many 
of us there is a tinge of sadness withal. Since our last annual gather- 
ing death has been in our midst. We miss to-night the smiling faces of 
two of our compatriots who have been associated with us in this work 
for many years, both of whom were my predecessors in office. Perhaps 
more than all others they have worked for the interests of the Empire 
State Society — the one proud of his Dutch ancestry and ready to defend 
it on all occasions — the other equally proud of the fact that he was 
descended from the New England Puritans. And I ask you, ladies and 
gentlemen, to take your glasses, filled with pure water, and drink in 
silence to the memory of the Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt and Walter S. 
Logan. (The assembly rose in a body and responded to President Mar- 
ble's request.) 

Speaking of the ladies, I am reminded of a little story of a Kentucky 
Colonel who was suddenly called upon to reply to a toast, "The Ladies." 
He was entirely unprepared, and as he rose to his feet he said : 

" What a noble theme, the toast to the American ladies. What a pleas- 
ure to any American citizen to reply to that toast. What words of elo- 
quence come to an orator's lips when he thinks of that beautiful subject, 
the American ladies ; and as the poet says — yes, as the poet says : 

'O woman, in our hours of ease, 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please — 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please — 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
When seen too oft', familiarity with her face 
Leads us first to endure, then pity and embrace.' ' 

It is customary in all English banquets, I am told, for the first toast 
to be to the king. In this glorious Republic of ours we have no king to 
whom we can offer this toast ; but, compatriots and friends, we have an 
honored member of this Society, a beloved patriot, who is delighted to 
be with us whenever his official duties will allow it. He is unavoidably 
detained to-night. We cannot call him a king, but he is a king of men, 
and I ask you to join with me in drinking the health of our loved com- 
patriot/who pays his dues annually to this Society, Theodore Roosevelt, 
President of the United States. (Loud applause. All rise and drink 
to the President.) 

2 



The first regular toast of the evening is "Patriotism and Good Citizen- 
ship." The person who is to reply to this toast certainly needs no intro- 
duction from me. He is known and loved of us all. Perhaps I ought to 
say, for the information of some of our guests, that he comes from Peeks- 
kill, and it might be said of him as it has been said of another person who 
came from Peekskill — no need to describe him, you all know him well — 
for what compatriot has not felt the spell of the wit and the wisdom, the 
charm and the grace he diffuses about him, whatever the place. (Ap- 
plause.) He sometimes, we think, is not quite right in politics, but as 
for patriotism, he is always right; and if he were cut, longitudinally and 
latitudinally, he would be red, white and blue all the way through. Com- 
patriots, the President-General of the National Society of the Sons of 
the American Revolution, the Hon. Cornelius A. Pugsley, of Peekskill. 
{Applause.) 



PATRIOTISM AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP. 

Annual Banquet, Empire State Society, S. A. R., New York, 
Nov. 26, 1906. 

HON. CORNELIUS ARMORY PUGSLEY. 

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : — This afternoon I met the 
worthy Secretary-General of the Sons of the American Revolution and 
said to him that I felt extremely tired after having been in session for 
three hours with the Board of Managers of the National Society. He 
said, "You are not going to speak to-niglii ?" I replied in the affirmative, 
and you can imagine my surprise when he said: "Well, that's too bad!" 
(Laughter.) Whether it was sympathy for me or my audience, I know 
not. 

We glory, as sons of the American Revolution, in the heroic deeds of 
our fathers, and we celebrate to-night an event of transcendent import 
in their lives, the evacuation by the British of the Gty of New York, an 
event which was the consummation of their hopes in their long struggle 
for independence. But I am under the impression that our fathers never 
dreamed they were giving to their descendants and to the new world 
such a charming and fascinating city as the metropolis of New York, 
a metropolis of skyscrapers, a city of subways, where we find ever cour- 
teous and ever polite conductors saying to all: "Step lively." (Laugh- 
ter.) But we do well to remember, my compatriots, as we recall the 
valor of our fathers, that 

"Those, who on glorious ancestors enlarge, 
Produce their debt, instead of their discharge." 

I do not wonder, when we dwell too much upon our ancestral lines,, 
that some one should slyly say: "When a man's talk is mainly of his 
ancestors you may know that the best of the family is under ground." 
(Laughter.) Looking backward, however, whether to ancestry or for 
other purposes, is usually profitable. Edward Bellamy, "looking back- 
ward," made a fortune, while Lot's wife made her salt. (Laughter.) 

But we glory to-night, not alone in the deeds of the patriots of '76,. 
but in the perpetuation of those great principles and ideals of govern- 

4 



ment for which our fathers battled, and which through all the years of 
our country's history have been maintained by the courage and the devo- 
tion of patriotic men and women. As I read the pages of our nation's 
history, and of her mighty conflicts on land and sea, I have but one senti- 
ment — glory, eternal glory and honor for the American soldier and sailor, 
regular and volunteer alike, the defenders of our country and our flag, 
whose sublime daring from Lexington to Gettysburg, to San Juan Hill 
and into the Philippines, means that America stands obedient to the di- 
vine behest that called her into being; means that amid all the commer- 
cialism of to-day the true blood of patriotism still flows ; means that all 
the great problems now confronting us in our governmental life, whether 
internal or external, whether diplomatic or administrative, whether the 
control of gigantic corporations, the solution of the negro or race ques- 
tion, or the status of the Monroe doctrine, will be solved in the interests 
of the American people, will be solved by a wise statesmanship, a states- 
manship that has always been ours, a patriotic statesmanship like that 
manifested by James A. Garfield, who, at a critical period in our nation's 
life, stilled the tumultuous passions of men's hearts with the single sen- 
tence : "God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives." 
(Applause.) 

We have reason to rejoice that patriotism belongs not alone to war, 
but is a mighty factor in times of peace. It may lie far below the sur- 
face of our ordinary life, but when the state or nation is imperilled, it 
bursts forth and sweeps before it all those influences that are harmful or 
detrimental to the body politic, and builds up those which are for the 
betterment of the state and nation. It means a good deal for the sta- 
bility of this Republic, if truth, honesty, duty, obligation to high ideals 
and lofty ambitions — none of which may be measured by a monetary 
standard — are not lost, but still abide and inspire the people of these 
United States. Well did our most distinguished compatriot, Theodore 
Roosevelt, say: "It is of mighty small importance whether we are Re- 
publicans or Democrats, but it is of very real importance that we should 
be good Americans and do our duty in a straight and decent fashion." 
(Applause.) 

We are justly proud of our great State of New York, proud of her 
level-headed, honest Governor-elect, Charles E. Hughes (applause), who 
is with us to-night and whom we gladly welcome. Ever has New York 
stood foremost in the history of the nation ; ever have her citizens been 
proud of her citizenship ; ever have we been proud of her magnificent 
area, her educational and her financial institutions — yes, proud even of 
her life insurance companies. (Laughter and applause.) 

5 



I said to our worthy Governor only a few minutes ago that when I 
rose to speak I always felt that I had forgotten everything I ever knew, 
and you may imagine the Governor saying: "What an ideal witness 
(laughter and applause) you would make in a life insurance or trust 
company investigation." (Laughter. | 

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that, through the rugged honesty 
and the determined purpose of the American people, the people of the 
State of New York and of the nation, and especially the members of this 
great patriotic society, will stand and stand firmly for those great prin- 
ciples and ideals of Government that make for good American citizen- 
ship. In the maintenance of those principles, which are as distinctly 
ours to-day as they were the early patriots, I believe that this organiza- 
tion, and other kindred organizations like that of the Daughters of the 
American Revolution, presided over by their brilliant President-General, 
Mrs. Donald McLean (applause), should and will and do play a most 
important part. These great organizations are doing a magnificent 
work, not only in building monuments, in marking battlefields, but they 
are instilling in the youth of this broad land principles of patriotism, and 
are educating our foreign-born population for good citizenship. 

One of the greatest problems now confronting us is the American- 
izing of the vast hordes of immigrants that are weekly landed upon our 
shores. I do not wonder that the wit of Ellis Island, some time ago, 
when he saw something like 50,000 immigrants landed at the Port of 
New York in less than a week, said drily: "I don't suppose they have 
left a soul in Europe, except American tourists." (Laughter and ap- 
plause.) 

I believe that we should gladly welcome to our shores the honest, 
upright sons of other lands; but we do not want the criminals, the pau- 
pers, the off-scouring of Europe. We do not want our citizenship weak- 
ened. We do not want our high ideals lowered. We do not want our 
American customs, our American institutions, our American Sunday dis- 
regarded. (Applause.) We do not want License masquerading as 
Liberty. We want men who will be American in spirit, as well as 
American in citizenship. (Applause.) 

I was very much gratified to receive this message last evening from 
the President of the Sons of the American Revolution of the State of 
Ohio, sending greeting to the National Society, in which he says: 

"Greetings of the Ohio Society to the National Society. I 
suggest as a text for this year, two words, 'Patriotic education,' 
with the emphasis placed upon both words." (Applause.) 

We have reason to rejoice that we have been so successful in Ameri- 

6 



canizing immigrants and educating their children, and that their children 
go forth with ours from the public schools of our land with the Star 
Spangled Banner waving over their heads, singing: " My Country, 'Tis 
of Thee," Americans, everyone of them. (Applause.) 

If this nation is to take the lead in the march of human progress, in 
the onward sweep of civilization along the higher plane of humanity, our 
boasted liberty must not degenerate into license, and we must know 

"When to take occasion by the hand 
And make the bounds of freedom wider yet." 

I believe that through an enduring patriotism, a patriotism born of 
moral courage, the people of these United States will behold with the 
Republic's ever increasing years an ever increasing grandeur, majesty 
and power worthy of the men who in all its generations have stood for 
the highest and best in our national life. (Applause.) 

Behind this great patriotic organization, the Sons of the American 
Revolution, is a wealth of tradition. May it be so perpetuated that, if 
the day demands it, the State of Connecticut, represented here to-night 
by her Governor-elect and other worthy compatriots, will furnish another 
Nathan Hale. (Applause.) May it be so perpetuated that, if the day 
demands it, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, also represented here 
to-night by worthy compatriots, will furnish men like those that stood 
at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. (Applause.) May it be 
so perpetuated that the State of New York and the State of New Jersey 
will produce unnumbered heroes ; while from other states and territories 
throughout this broad land will come regiments and armies of fearless 
men of strong courage and sturdy patriotism, who will stand not alone 
for military prowess, but pre-eminently for good citizenship, among whom 
may there be found, if the day demands it, another Washington, another 
Grant, (applause), and another Lincoln. (Loud applause.) 

PRESIDENT MARBLE. 

The next regular toast is entitled "One Hundred and Twenty-three 
Years After." The gentleman who will respond to this toast is a mem- 
ber of the Michigan State Society of the Sons of the /American Revolu- 
tion. Surely a bold Lochinvar has come out from the West. Through 
all their wide borders his speech was the best — so we are told. He has 
recently resigned from a very successful pastorate in the city of Grand 
Rapids, Michigan, to take up a similar work in this city. Speaking of 
his having resigned a pastorate reminds me of a story I heard from the 



lips of that prince of after-dinner speakers, the Rev. Minot J. Savage — 
not that the story has any application to the case before us, but, as the 
Yankee said, it reminds me of it because it is so totally different. The 
story is that a pastor who had presided for five years over a church in 
one of our small New England towns, some years ago got up on Sun- 
day morning and began his sermon like this : 

"Brethren and Sisters : I have been your pastor for five years. I 
am about to preach my farewell sermon. I believe the Lord doesn't love 
this people, for He has not called one of them home to Himself during 
the five years that I have been here ; I have not preached a single funeral 
sermon. I am very sure that this people do not love each other, for I 
have never had a wedding fee during these five years ; and I am very 
sure that this people do not love their pastor, for I have never received 
my salary in full, but have had it eked out each year by wormy potatoes 
and decayed apples. By their fruits ye shall know them. I have taken 
a position as Chaplain in a penitentiary. Whither I go ye cannot come — 
at present. I go to prepare a place for you." (Laughter.) 

And now, compatriots, it gives me great personal pleasure to intro- 
duce to you a member of the Michigan State Society, but who I trust 
ere long will be enrolled in the Empire State Society, the Rev. Dr. J. 
Herman Randall, of the Mount Morris Baptist Church, of this city. 



SPEECH OF 
REV. J. HERMAN RANDALL, D. D. 

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : — I want to express my very 
-great pleasure at this privilege of meeting with you to-night, and also 
my genuine appreciation of the honor conferred, in inviting me to 
address you on this occasion. When your worthy President asked 
me if I would attend this dinner and take part as one of the speakers, I 
was reminded of a story once told by a ministerial friend. He said he 
had been sent for on a certain occasion to come and see a man who was 
very sick, a perfect stranger to him. He was admitted to the house and 
taken at once to the sick chamber. He sat down by the side of the bed 
and took the man's hand in his and said : "What induced you to send for 
me?" 

It happened that the sick man was quite deaf, and there was no reply. 
My friend repeated his question : 

"What induced you to send for me?" 

"Hey?" was the response. 

The man's wife, who was standing near the bed, leaned over and 
shouted at the top of her voice in the man's ear : 

"He wants to know, John, what in the- deuce you sent for him for!" 

So I could not help but wonder why I had been sent for on such an 
occasion as this, I who am the "youngest Roman of you all." However, 
I am very glad indeed to meet with you to-night and to bring you the 
hearty greetings of the Michigan Society of the Sons of the American 
Revolution. 

x\s we have listened to the preceding speaker, I wished it were possi- 
ble for us to project ourselves back through the mist of these intervening 
years to the occasion which we commemorate here to-night, 123 years 
ago. I wish we might impress that scene so vividly on our memories as 
to enter into its real significance and catch some of the deep emotions 
that must have stirred the hearts of the people of this city at that time. 

This is indeed a great day that we celebrate, second only in importance 
to the original birthday of this community. We must remember that 
during the years of the Revolutionary War the State of New York had 
suffered more than all the other thirteen states or colonies. Its soil had 
1)een overrun by both armies in succession. Much of the land of this 
State had been devastated, the people had been driven away from their 

9 



homes. Much property had been pillaged and destroyed. It was indeed 
a place where great suffering, sacrifice and privation had been endured ; 
and yet, as you know full well, the sons of New York stood together 
heroically and faced either victory or defeat in every great battle of that 
great war. This city had been called upon to pass through tremendous 
experiences of suffering and privation. The British Ministry had 
sought in every possible way to wean the people away from loyalty 
to their brethren of the other colonies, and yet you know how stead- 
fastly they stood by their companions. We can imagine something 
of the suffering of thpse years. It was '*a hungry and a thirsty day," as 
some one has said, 123 years ago yesterday. They sat down to no such- 
menu as we have enjoyed this evening. They had been encouraged by 
the words of Lord Chatham, when he said: "If I were an Englishman, 
so long as a foreign soldier remained in my country I would never lay 
down my arms." They had responded eagerly to that voice of sympathy 
and encouragement from across the water, and at last the great day ar- 
rived when they realized that the fruits of peace and the real benefits of 
the war were to be realized. They saw the ships embarking and knew 
that at last these foreign soldiers, more than half of whom were hired 
mercenaries, were forever leaving our shores. Think of the feelings of 
pride and exultation among our forefathers on that day as they realized 
that this country was being given back at last to its long suffering, loyal 
sons. 

And after 123 years what do we behold? Tremendous changes have 
taken place during this passage of years. We remember to-night that 
the company of three millions of people that then made up the population 
of this country has increased to more than twenty times that number. 
We are conscious in ourselves, and with pardonable pride, as one of the 
recent English historians has said, that '"Henceforth the most important 
branch of the English-speaking race lies in America, and from now on- 
ward the destiny of the English race must work itself out through chan- 
nels not of the Thames and the Mersey, but of the Hudson and the 
Mississippi. 

During these years there has been opened up a new continent. Un- 
dreamed of resources have been developed, and we are living to-day 
in the midst of a metropolis that is perhaps second only among the great 
cities of the world. If wealth and numbers are the test, then has New 
\'ork City indeed come up to the full measure of its opportunity. 

And yet if it be true — and I think we all agree to-night that it is true 
—that wealth and material advantages, prosperity and numbers are not 
indeed the end, but only the means to the end, I am sure we must con- 

10 



fess that there is great work lying before us, to be accomplished in the 
days that are yet to come. One hundred and twenty-three years after, 
and we are standing to-day amidst all the splendid glory and material 
prosperity of an age, unparalleled in all the past of history ; and yet we 
are compelled to bow the head and with shame confess to ourselves that 
we are not altogether what we ought to be. We have been deluged, dur- 
ing these past two or three years, with a "literature of exposure." Some 
of it is undoubtedly exaggerated, and is therefore unjust and untrue. 
Much of it, alas, is altogether too true. We have only to look back 
sixty years in our own history, to the times of Garrison and Wendell 
Phillips, and be made conscious that the great blot of human slavery was 
wiped off the page of our history simply because there was at that time 
'* a literature of exposure " and men brave enough to face the facts, and 
rdl the facts, such as they were. (Applause). And I am sure that there 
is one other condition of things in our country to-day that would be even 
worse and more humiliating to every true patriot, namely, to know that 
dishonesty existed in high places and graft abounded in every form, and 
yet that. there was no exposure made; that there stood in our midst to- 
day no man with ideals clear enough to enable him tc stand forth and 
condemn that which was wrong and praise that which was right. So it 
seems to me that in the revelations which have shamed and saddened us, 
there is real ground for encouragement to-night. " Where there is no 
vision the people perish." It was true in the olden times, and it is just as 
true to-day. Thank God, we are catching the vision afresh. We are set- 
ting up once more the old landmarks as between what is right and honest 
and what is wrong and dishonest, and out of all the chaos of existing 
conditions we are coming to understand that, as a people, we must be 
governed alone by these eternal principles of righteousness and justice 
and truth. (Applause). 

There are three different attitudes that we may take as we confront 
the conditions that surround us ; and the first is the attitude of Pessimism. 
It is the spirit which says, as many people are saying, that things are 
hopelessly bad, that there is no way out of it, except in revolution — by 
clearing the ground and beginning all over again. We may listen to the 
voice of the croaker in the land, and may strive in a spirit of pessimism 
and hopelessness to go backward rather than to go forward. We may 
feel, perhaps, as that father felt who took his son on a visit to Washing- 
ton. At length then came to the United States Senate just as the Chap- 
lain was offering prayer. The little boy said : 

" Pa, what is that man doing?" 

" He is a minister," replied the parent; " don't you see he is praying?"' 

11 



" Is he praying for the Senate?" asked the boy. 

" Xo, my son, he is not praying for the Senate ; he stands up and 
takes a look at the Senate and then prays for the country." (Laughter). 
And in the same spirit we sympathize with the old lady who was 
called to court to testify in a certain case. She had on one of those poke 
bonnets which practically concealed her face, and as the examination pro- 
ceeded the lawyers and the Judge found it difficult to understand what 
she said. Finally the Judge leaned over and said: 

"Will you kindly remove your bonnet?" 

There was no response 

A little further on the Judge asked her again if she wouldn't please 
remove her bonnet, whereupon she said : 

Xo, sir, I am not taking off my bonnet for anybody !" 

Somewhat nettled, the Judge turned to the woman and said : 

" My will is usually law in this court room. Perhaps you would 
like to come up here and run things yourself for a little while?" 

" No, thank you," said the woman, " there are enough old women 
sitting on the bench already." (Laughter). 

Then there is a second attitude, that of the Optimist, or, as it means 
to many people, a blind optimism. It is the other extreme from pes- 
simism. Jt is the spirit found in many a club and drawing-room, of the 
man who says " things are all right, I am making money, my friends are 
making money, don't talk about dishonesty; for Heaven's sake, if things 
are going crooked cover them up and don't reveal them to the world." 
You remember the boy who asked his father what an optimist was. 

" The Optimist," said the father, "is the man who doesn't care what 
happens so long as it doesn't happen to him, while the pessimist is the 
man who has just been talking t * > an optimist." 

I feel just as certain that the solution does not lie along the line of 
blind optimism. Some one has coined for us in these last few years an- 
other word that seems to me to express the true attitude, "meliorism." We 
need to he meliorists to-day, that is, demanding all the facts and nothing 
but the facts, still undismayed looking towards the future with hopeful- 
ness and courage in our hearts. And while it may seem that ''right is 
Eoiever on the scaffold; wrong forever on the throne," yet with a deep. 
abiding confidence we affirm over and over again that " that scaffold 
sways the future, and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the 
shadow, keeping watch over all His own." (Applause). 

The spirit needed is that of the meliorist, who wants to know all the 
conditions, and yet says "we can find a solution of the problems, great 
as they are — it may take time — it may require patience and persistency, 

12 



but at last we shall be able to lead mankind up to a higher plane. 
This is the spirit which, I believe, we should possess. And it seems- 
to me that we need to emphasize more and more everywhere in our 
homes, our churches and schools, as well as in the marts of trade, the ne- 
cessity for this spirit of hopefulness which is not blind optimism, but 
which is sane and rational and intelligent, that recognizes and under- 
stands the problems, and yet believes that some solution must at last be 
found. 

There are many different kinds of patriotism, as you know. There 
is the patriotism of Display which consists in raising the Flag on the 
Fourth of July, in decorations, in shooting off fireworks, in applauding 
the procession as it goes by, with the bands playing martial airs ; yet if 
this is all, we have not discovered the true essence of patriotism. Then 
there is the patriotism of Rhetoric, which consists in beautiful platitudes 
and high-sounding phrases. 

I am reminded of an exhibition of Fourth of July patriotism which 
occurred in a Western town not many years ago. The interest was run- 
ning high when one orator, describing the boundaries of this country, de- 
clared it was " bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the south 
by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and on the 
west by the Pacific Ocean." 

That was altogether too conservative for one of the other warm- 
blooded patriots, who proceeded to explain that this country was bound- 
ed " on the north by the North Pole, on the south by the South Pole,, 
on the east by the rising sun, and on the west by the setting sun." 

That was a little better, but as the patriotism rose to greater heignts, 
another of the young orators jumped up and said, with much evident ex- 
citement : 

" Here's to our country, bounded on the north by the Aurora Boreal- 
is, on the south by the Procession of the Equinoxes, on the east by Prim- 
ordial Chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment." (Laughter and 
applause). 

We must all admit that that is very beautiful rhetoric, but the essence 
of patriotism is not contained in it. 

Then there is a kind of Practical Patriotism, that consists in looking 
out for number one. 

You have all heard the story of the New York landlady at the time 
of the Civil War, when the merchants were saying to the young men in 
their employ: " Go to the front, if you want to; go and do your duty a? 
soldiers of- the country, and we will let your pay run right along." This 
landlady, in the same spirit, said to her boarders that, so far as she was- 

13 



concerned, she was perfectly willing to let the board bills run right along, 
if any of her boarders wanted to go to the defense of their country. 
(Laughter). 

There is too much of such patriotism in our midst to-day. The patiiot- 
ism that is needed as perhaps at no other time in our nation's history, if 
I may put it in a single sentence, is the patriotism which here and else- 
where throughout the length and breadth of our land, is willing to sac- 
rifice private interests for the sake of the public good. (Applause). 

There is one scene that took place on the afternoon of the same day 
we are celebrating, 123 years ago, that I wish might be burned indelibly 
on every patriot's mind to-night. It was after the disembarking of these 
foreign soldiers, and it took place in Fraunces' Tavern. Washington 
had come without his uniform. He was surrounded by his associates 
and Generals, and it had come to the time of his last meeting with them. 
With suppressed emotion, and with tears in every eye, he turned to these 
men and said, with a heart full of love and gratitude : 

" I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter 
days may be as prosperous and happy as your former have been glorious 
and honorable." 

Then they came forward, one by one and took his hand and pressed 
it in silence. When they had all said good-by, Washington turned 
from that little company and walked down to Whitehall through two 
corps of light infantry. And as the barge which was waiting for him 
swung out into the Hudson River, he turned to the crowd that had 
followed him in silence and sadness, and, taking his hat from his head, 
waved a silent adieu. 

Great as Commander-in-Chief, great as President of this newly-born 
nation, he was greatest of all as man and private citizen, simply in this, 
that he had the willingness to sacrifice his personal interests for the sake 
of the public good whenever the call of duty sounded in his ears. 

I believe we are entering upon an era of the revival of the old spirit 
of self-effacing patriotism as it burned in the breasts of men like Wash- 
ington. A new chapter is opening in our country's history, when public 
service will be considered a moral vocation, and when the men placed 
in high positions of trust in our city, state and nation will be men pos- 
sessed of the highest moral ideals, men in whose hearts there is the high- 
est moral purpose, men guided by deep convictions based upon justice 
and truth alone. (Applause.) 

You may recall the incident that occurred during the Civil War of 
the color sergeant who had gone on ahead of his men. Climbing up the 
.hillside toward the enemy, he had not heard the sound of retreat. Finally, 

14 



looking back, he saw that the men were hastening down the hill, and the 
Major, putting his hands up to his mouth, shouted out: 

"The retreat has been sounded. Come back! Come back!" The 
color sergeant turned about for an instant, and putting his hands to his 
lips, shouted back : 

"Major, I can't come back! Bring up your men! Bring up your 
men !" 

I thank God to-night that we have in the Presidential chair at the 
White House, and that we have elected to the Gubernatorial chair at Al- 
bany, men who are, in every sense of the word, leaders of the people — 
not of party or of class, but of the people as a whole — men who are lead- 
ers simply because they lead, and for no other reason ; and that is the 
only thing that makes the true leader anywhere. I thank God to-dav 
that these men are calling back to us — we of little faith, we who get dis- 
couraged, who are tempted to become pessimistic — calling back to us : 

"Bring up the men, bring up the citizenship of our country! We 
can't come back. We have kept the faith, we have set the ideals ! Now 
bring up the citizenship to that high plane where this country shall be- 
come in truth, a country of the people, for the people, and by the people." 
(Applause.) 

"God give us men — a time like this 
Demands strong minds, brave hearts, true faith and ready hands, 
Men whom the lust of office does not kill, 

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy. 
Men who possess opinions and a will, 

Men who have honor, men who will not lie, 
Men who can stand before a demagogue 

And scorn his treacherous flatteries without flinching, 
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 

In public duty and in private thinking." 

(Applause.) 

PRESIDENT MARBLE. 

You have now learned why in the deuce we sent for him. The next 
regular toast will be " The State of New York." The gentleman who 
will respond to that toast needs no introduction from me. We praise 
him for what he has been in the past ; we honor him for what he is in the 
present, and we will trust him for the future. Ladies and gentlemen, 
Charles E. Hughes, the Governor-elect of the State of New York. (Loud 
applause.) 



15 



SPEECH OF 
GOVERNOR-ELECT CHARLES E. HUGHES. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Sons of the American Revolu- 
tion, and Daughters — or should I say Daughters-in-law? — I thank you. 
(Laughter and applause.) 

Whenever we look over our ancestral stocks, whether preferred or 
common, we are impressed with the variety of relation which is made 
possible under our democratic institutions by a wise selection of fore- 
bears. (Laughter.) It is my happy privilege, although I live beneath 
my opportunities, to claim the patronage of St. David, St. Patrick, St. 
Andrew, St. George and St. Nicholas, and I may with some justice claim 
the right to be here to-night — subject to the payment of dues — as I cher- 
ish the memory of an ancestor who as an officer of the line in a New York 
regiment and as a member of the staff of Governor Clinton, discharged 
worthily, I believe, his duty in the war of American independence. (Ap- 
plause. ) 

With mere pride of descent, however, I have little patience. The dis- 
tinction of ancestry means naught but humiliation for unworthy descend- 
ants. Nor do I regard organizations based upon ancestry as consistent 
with the American spirit, save as they exist for the purpose of teaching 
the lessons of patriotism and of enforcing upon their members the duty 
of the hour. (Applause.) 

It is in that spirit that we are here to-night. 

It is not my purpose to speak at length, and you can well understand 
that, in view of the present demands upon me, I can present only a few 
desultory observations. 

We do not honor those who fought in the great struggle simply, or 
chiefly, because of the sacrifices they made, the hardships they endured, 
the courage they displayed. We honor them because of the cause in 
which they enlisted and the principle for which they were ready to lay 
down their lives. They gave us a country, and they kindled the fires of 
patriotism, which are ever renewed and kept bright and glowing by their 
patriotic sons. We cannot afford to lose the touch of emotion upon pa- 
triotic duty. The schoolboy who learns of the events and the dates of 
the great struggle without feeling the touch of the magic wand, without 
having his heart thrilled with the idea that it is his country that he is 

16 



learning about, loses half his heritage. (Applause.) And at this tune, 
when we are crowded with the demands and vexed with the problems of 
our teeming industrial life, we must lose no opportunity to kindle patri- 
otic ardor, and to stimulate the emotion which causes a thrill in every 
breast at the sound of the national anthem or at the sight of the Stars 
and Stripes. (Applause.) 

But it has been well said that it is a poor thing to create emotion with- 
out having that emotion well directed, directed to some specific object, 
and not allowed to evaporate in air. What splendid reserves we have 
that we could call upon, if our country were in danger ! We find to-day 
the same readiness to sacrifice life and treasure as was found 130 years 
ago in the War of Independence, as was found a little more than 40 years 
ago when the Union itself was in danger. 

But we have peace. Peace is our normal condition. The blessings 
of peace, we hope, will remain constant ; and I would voice the sentiment 
of the last speaker in saying that we ought to be able to call upon these 
splendid reserves for the higher patriotism of peace. The great victories 
of which we are so proud, the great sacrifices that we linger ovei so 
lovingly, ought to make possible for us, ought to make imperative for 
us sacrifice and devotion to-day to the interests of our country no less 
real, no less important in these piping times of peace. 

It has been said that the citizen should be alive to the duty of register- 
ing and the duty of exercising the right of suffrage, to the duty of tak- 
ing his part in the working of the machinery of government. That is 
right; but there is a more fundamental duty. We have too much, as has 
been well said, of a vague notion of love of country. There are men 
who would lay down their lives for the country, who, in their daily con- 
duct, will manage themselves so as to adhere only as closely to the line 
of rectitude as is necessary to keep them out of jail. (Applause.) We 
need men who will not only be ready to sacrifice for their country in 
time of war, but who will not be a menace to it in time of peace! (Loud 
applause.) We want patriots in finance. We want patriots in the or- 
ganization of corporations. We want patriots in the conduct of public 
utilities. We want patriots in rendering loyal obedience to the law. 
(Applause.) 

It is not simply the inculcation of that spirit which expresses itself 
in love for the Flag, in general exultation over our institutions. It is 
t that true American spirit which shows itself in self-imposed restraints, 
in consciousness of human brotherhood, in that desire to share burdens 
and to equalize opportunities — that true American- spirit which makes 
brothers of us all. (Applause.) 

17 



Coincident with the effort to have a true, honest, administration of 
the government, in connection with the efforts to have faithful service 
in every public office, should be the effort of every citizen, in his own 
life, to live according, not to the letter but to the spirit of the law, and 
to see to it that there is no occasion for the law to bear upon his own 
undertakings. (Applause.) 

It is that patriotism of the pocketbook that we want in these days of 
ours. We must recognize the fact that we are a union not simply of 
states. We are not merely a political union. We are a union of lives 
linked together for better or for worse. The man who wraps himself 
complacently in the garments of prosperity, impatient at the demands of 
those who cry to him for assistance — that man does not appreciate the 
genius of our institutions ; that man is not a true American citizen. The 
man who looks from the vantage-point of social position with disdain 
upon those whom he describes as ignorant and disorderly classes — with 
whom he feels no sympathy — and shuts his ears to the entreaties that 
come from his unfortunate brethren — he does not know why the Union 
should be preserved, he does not know for what our fathers died. (Ap- 
plause.) 

The man who attempts, upon inflated values, to lay a basis for ex- 
aggerated returns for public service, has yet to learn what the battle of 
Lexington meant ; he has yet to learn the principles of the Declaration of 
Independence. (x\pplause.) And noble as are the sentiments of Ameri- 
can liberty when expressed in times of public danger, ardent as is the 
patriotic love of country when the national safety is menaced, we want 
that love of country to-day expressed in terms that men on the street 
can understand, and a public sentiment that will not tolerate any other 
conduct but that self-sacrificing course of action due to a consciousness 
of responsibility to every other American citizen which will make our 
industrial management sweet and clean. (Cries of "Bravo!" Loud ap- 
plause.) 

We want not simply the exercise of the right of suffrage ; not simply 
the holding of public officers to strict accountability. It is not enough 
to have a continued effort for political reform. The most ambitious 
scheme of government finds its test in the human devotion that you can 
bring to its aid in putting it in practice. What we need more than any- 
thing else, lying outside and beyond any matter of administration of gov- 
ernment, any matter of judicial procedure, any matter of legal enactment 
for the purpose of reform, is sober and righteous living, the kindly dis- 
position, proper regard for the rights of one's neighbor — that true Ameri- 
can spirit which should emanate from all true patriots, which should be 

18 



recognized and enforced by every patriotic organization. (Prolonged 
applause.) 

PRESIDENT MARBLE. 

I want to take this opportunity to say, in justice to the last speaker, 
that the invitation to speak at this banquet was extended to him before he 
was elected to the Governorship of this State ; and when the question 
was asked him if he would come to our banquet, he said : 

" I suppose you mean if I am elected Governor you want me?" And 
our committee said : 

"No, Mr. Hughes; we want you for what you are." (Applause.) 

Mr. Hughes has innumerable calls upon him, and I am advised that 
this is practically the only public banquet, other than some political con- 
nections which he has to make, that he will attend before he occupies the 
Governor's chair. He said something about sons-in-law of the Ameri- 
can revolution. He intimated that he is entitled to become a Son. If 
he is, we shall find it out within the next few months and have him on 
our list. But we do know that he is a son-in-law of the American revo- 
lution, for Mrs. Hughes was the daughter of Walter Carter, a member 
of this Society, who has done a great deal of work for it, and whom we 
all honored during his life. (Applause.) 

The next regular toast is entitled "Enterprise and Comradeship/' 
Those of you who attended our banquet two years ago will remember 
that we had as one of our speakers the Rev. Dr. Scott, of Worcester, 
Mass. (Applause.) And you will also remember that in the midst of 
a very interesting and witty speech, he was called down by the presence 
of Theodore Roosevelt, who entered the hall just as he was speaking. 
From that time on, we have been very anxious to hear the rest of Dr. 
Scott's speech. We heard the Alpha, and we are waiting for the Omega. 
Since he was here, I have, through a friend in the city of Worcester, 
where the Reverend Doctor resides, received a little piece of information 
which, in view of some of the stories he told two years ago, mav be of 
interest to the members of this organization. I am told that in Worces- 
ter there is an organization known as the A. A. A.'s. Membership in 
that organization is not confined to persons of any particular religious 
belief or nationality ; it includes some of the finest people in the city of 
Worcester. The present President of the organization, I am informed, 
is a Scotchman, and when he was inducted into office he issued a decree 
that every member of the official board should wear kilts. (Laughter.) 
Dr. Scott was tendered the position of Chaplain in that organization, 

19 



but he declined to accept it, on account of the garb. The objects of that 
organization I do not know entirely, but I do know that the full name 
of the organization is "The Anti-Abdomen Association of the City of 
Worcester." (Laughter.) 

Now, compatriots, we will hear the balance of Dr. Scott's speech. 



20 



SPEECH OF REV. WILLARD SCOTT, D. D. 

Mr. Toastmaster, Honorable Guests, and Sons of the American Rev- 
olution : — I am sure that you all are prepared to appreciate, after the 
unmasked reference of your Toastmaster to my thinness, how much I 
need these dinners, (laughter), and how thoroughly I enjoy them. But 
I gather from what I see about me that I have had fitting company in 
this pleasant experience, for there does not seem to be much remaining 
of that sumptuous repast which lately was spread before us. There is 
a saying, "Man wants but little here below when eating a la carte; but 
when it's table d liote, he wants it all right from the start." (Laughter.) 
And the avidity with which honorable judges on my left, devout dominies 
on my right, and all sorts and conditions of famished people in front, 
have laid hold of this dinner to-night, is an emphatic indication that the 
simple and strenuous life of the Forefathers, whom we celebrate, has 
received some modification in these times of greater abundance and a 
more genial look upon life. This, I am sure, we may all properly re- 
joice in as a wholesome gain of our times, and a favorable prospect for 
our children. The heart of the world at large loves good eating and 
good fellowship. "Smile and the world smiles with you," says the pro- 
verb; "Snore and you sleep- alone," (laughter) ; a sentiment with which 
I most heartily agree. 

When it comes to making a speech, however, especially at this un- 
canny hour of the night, the case is somewhat different; and as your 
long and brilliant program of toasts proceeded, I found myself hoping 
that no time would be left for me, and that I might repeat the pleasant 
experience of a golf tournament the past summer, in which I participated 
for the club of which I am a member — playing eight men against another 
club's eight — in which their eighth man defaulted, and I was posted with 
a perfect score among the winners without having been for a moment 
off the club-house porch; thereby gaining a considerable reputation as 
a golfer, which I have never explained within a hundred miles of the 
town where I live. (Laughter.) I was the more willing that this 
pleasant fate should overtake me again to-night, since it is scarcely more 
than a year, if I remember, since I had the honor of addressing your 
honorable body, and it is perhaps not my turn to speak here again, at 
least so soon. I am somewhat in the position of the good deacon who 
was caught napping in prayer meeting when he was called upon to lead 

21 



in prayer. His weariness had been occasioned by a pleasant game of 
whist the evening before, and being somewhat dazed by this hurry-call 
to public devotions, he ventured to excuse himself by replying : "It is not 
my turn to lead; I just dealt." (Laughter.) 

However, if you are disposed to take time after mid-night for further 
words upon the pleasant topic before us, I shall not refuse to do my part 
in eulogy of those noble men and women of other days, who performed 
their part in the battle of life so well that we have much to glory now in 
their behalf. I am the more willing to do this on account of my mem- 
bership in a profession which has sometimes seemed to cherish only an 
indifferent enthusiasm towards worldly deeds of valor, being chiefly 
occupied with the interests of another sphere of existence and its awards. 
Of course there is a difference among clergymen, as there is among 
people of other professions and occupations. A gentleman once said 
to his friend who was entertaining him, "Do you know our minister? 
He is the salt of the earth." To which the other replied : " That's funny, 
ours is too fresh to keep." (Laughter.) There are said even to have 
been clergymen so primitive that all they needed for their work was a. 
Bible to give them their texts, an almanac to tell them when Sunday 
came, and a Democratic newspaper as an illustration of total depravity. 
(Laughter.) They are said to have lived chiefly in a region quite re- 
mote from the common interests of human life, being usually invisible 
during the week and incomprehensible on Sunday. To them the present 
life was a pilgrimage to be endured, rather than a career of importance 
in itself, to be pressed to the utmost of their powers. But this point of 
view, if it ever existed to the extent sometimes reported, is plainly no 
longer prevalent. I see that there are three clergymen at least here at 
this banquet, which is a pleasing sign that the ministry, as a profession, 
is not now averse to taking its share of the good things of this life, or 
its part in whatever concerns the people of thought and action of our 
time. If there is any disposition to indulge in criticism of them on this 
account, I do not know of a better attitude to assume than that taken by 
a clergyman who was reproved in an anonymous note forrdriving a pair 
of fast horses, and reminded that his Lord rode into Jerusalem on a 
much humbler animal. He took the note into his pulpit on the follow- 
ing Sunday, and having explained how he came by it, and having read 
its contents, he added: "Now, if the writer of this note is in the audience, 
and will bring a saddle, I'll ride him home." (Laughter.) 

Personally, coming closer to the facts of experience as I know them. 
I find myself on occasions like this, rather more a citizen and a 
patriot than I am a saint. Perhaps this is not as it should be, but a 

22 



man must be honest with himself. And I know the reason for this 
feeling. The will of God was, as I judge on looking backward, that I 
should be conceived and born in those stirring anti-slavery days pre- 
vious to 1 86 1, when the very life and glory of our country were again 
at stake. In addition, it was His will that the blood and nerves of the 
men and women of Washington's time should be passed on to me by a 
mother whose forbears helped that great commander to hold the defensive 
line from Morristown to West Point against British aggression in Revo- 
lutionary days; a line which British aggression never safely crossed.' 
Moreover, her immediate father was with General Scott at Lundy's 
Lane, in the War of 1812, a veteran whom I rejoice to have known. 
My father happened to be from another country, but his traditions there 
were saturated with the red wine of heroism through Covenanter con- 
nections, and the place of his birth was warm with memories of great 
Wallace's childhood, and of his earlier exploits for his beloved Scotland. 
In these ways, and, as I say, "by the will of God," I find myself upon 
inward inspection to be a veritable patriot ; an American citizen of the 
fiery sort ; one of your number in spirit and by hereditary descent, 
though I have not collected my evidences in a formal way, having been 
busy at making history rather than at recording it. I am like the boy 
who was asked by his chum if he had ever been stung by a bee. To 
which question his chum replied, "No, but I've had hives." (Laughter.) 
So, while I have never joined the Sons of the American Revolution, or 
any other patriotic order, I have burned with the fever of their en- 
thusiasm as much as any of them, and I am as thoroughly devoted to 
the ideals which you cherish here to-night as you are yourselves. 

Having said so much by way of introduction (far too much I fear), 
let me now pass to the topic which your committee has assigned me upon 
which to say a few words : 

ENTERPRISE AND COMRADESHIP. 

Surely, these are great words in themselves, whatever may be their 
pertinency to this occasion. But are they not also appropriate to the 
memory of "them of old time," whose deeds, singly and together, have 
struck the bells of fame and set them ringing for all time, especially for 
us? For instance, what tremendous self-dependence and initiative those 
former men had. Do you answer that their times compelled them? That 
they could not choose otherwise? But they do not seem to me to have 
been like men who waged a defensive warfare, however persistently or 
bravely. Our Forefathers sought the contest. They pressed it. They 
renewed it again and again against primeval conditions and foes. They 

23 



seldom retreated even an inch, and then doggedly, determined to take 
up the advance again at their first apportunity. They never surrendered 
their purpose ; and they never quit their endeavor. The theme of war 
is not currently popular in our time, but I notice that we all kindle yet 
when any one speaks of the men of the past who "fought a good fight." 
The martial soul is in us, and it will not out. There is said to be a 
bulletin in a western hotel lobby which reads, "Boarders taken here by 
the day, week or month. Those who do not pay promptly will be taken 
by the neck." (Laughter.) I do not commend this as a Christian 
principle, for it is quite the opposite. But I am obliged to admit that 
there are times (perhaps in other countries), when it works pretty well. 
Our Forefathers were fighters, and for the most part it was an individual 
fight which they waged. Each man was for himself ; each colony was 
for itself. Even to their detriment sometimes, as we see it now, they 
were individualists. The principle which seemed to come least natural- 
ly to them was union, and they never really acquired it in their day. 

I like this about them. It commends them to my temper. More 
than that, it teaches us a useful lesson, namely, that the first, (may I 
not say the greatest?) factor of progress is self-assertion, enterprise, the 
prowess of the individual. The first great concept of human life is 
self. The first great battle of every man is to achieve himself. The old 
maxim, too often erased now, is still fearfully true, "Every man for 
himself, and the devil take the hindmost." The law of gravitation up- 
ward began so, and it has continued so until this present moment, and 
there is no sign that it will ever be cancelled from the statute book of 
nature. I shall admit presently that another great law of progress has 
come to recognition later, to moralize and enlarge this primitive instinct 
of the race, but it has not supplanted or fundamentally changed that 
first instinct. I stand ready to say as much as any man for the value 
of organization and association, so long as they are kept within their 
proper limits. No doubt a well organized army of men, in which each 
man is an expert fighter, is all the stronger and more effective for being 
competently officered and closely knit. But let no one suppose that the 
mere assembling and drilling of men can ever make an effective mass, 
independent of the qualities of the persons composing it. Any preach- 
ing or practicing of a law of society, whether called sociology or social- 
ism, which leaves out of account the fundamental law of self — first, last, 
and all the time — is a menace, whose pleasant face and alluring words 
are not to be trusted for a moment. We shall have no good or strong 
society except by continuing to produce good and strong members of it 
one by one, as in the past. The individual is the fundamental factor of 

24 



:all well-being and progress, and the chief concern of all moral thinking. 
It is this indelible conviction which gives us, as I believe, our per- 
petual interest in the hero, the fighter, the man who dares, the man who 
succeeds. Really, he dominates the field of interest for us all. Great 
.movements and periods of history are best remembered by the persons 
who came to the front through them. Most of the charming names of 
the past are those of persons of achievement. We have a happy habit 
of marking the progress of the race with the names of men and women 
of distinction. Even when great movements were the work of many 
persons, or of close federation, we like to single out some one of the 
workers, and to assemble all the virtues of his time in his name, that we 
may more distinctly keep in mind what was done. It matters much, 
then, that people shall continue to be born with good stuff in them ; 
that they shall have favorable opportunities for self-discovery and dis- 
cipline ; and that our social organizations shall not prevent them from 
the free exploitation of their own souls according to their individual 
needs. All the great imperatives of life are from God to the individual 
souls of His people. Sin is missing the mark. Salvation is hitting the 
mark. The sinner is the man who makes a miss ; the saint is the man 
who makes a hit. Every man is saved, (that is, "safe"), when he 
"makes good" with the manifold opportunities entrusted to him in life, 
each one for himself, under the illumination and guidance of his God. 

It is their success in accomplishing this which makes the story of 
the men and women of the Revolution so inspiring to me. In coopera- 
tion they were lamentably weak and unsuccessful. They were suspic- 
ious of alinement, and they held together poorly, even when it was to 
their interest to do so. They had no faith in union, nor was their vic- 
tory achieved by it. In this respect no doubt they fell behind the 
achievements of their Sons ; but they were right in not being willing 
to sacrifice their personal or their colonial independence for any plan of 
union which they distrusted. Our times are much more confident of 
what can be accomplished by organization, even to the extent of preach- 
ing it as a new and better gospel for the race. In reply, I think that 
we may safely say that the Fathers of the American Revolution did not 
think so. They believed in the individual soul, in individual right and 
wrong, and in individual duty and effort. For this I reverently honor 
them, and rejoice to be a follower in their steps. 

But my topic directs fhat I shall say something also about another 
great word, Comradeship, and the question may have arisen in your 
minds as I have been speaking, whether I have left any standing room for 
such an idea. I beg to assure you that I have, for I hold comradeship 

25 



to be the great supplementary principle and duty of our age. Possibly 
some of you may prefer the more familiar word, Brotherhood, but for 
the time being, at least, there is some advantage in not using it. A 
" brother," technically, is one who comes into relations with me without 
my choice. I may find these relations agreeable and mutually helpful, or 
I may find them quite the opposite. A comrade is one whom I choose for 
myself ; one whom I come to appreciate, to honor and to fellowship of my 
own freewill. I enter voluntarily into the interests of his life, and I ad- 
mit him to the secrets and possessions of my life. It is an interesting 
question, what effect this alliance necessarily has upon the individualism 
of which I have been speaking so emphatically. Does it impinge on it 
vitally? Does it tend to supersede it? Having discovered the law of 
comradeship, is the earlier law of self-interest retired from authority? 
Not in the slightest, in my judgment. Indeed, I think it is quite true to 
say, that we can never really do our duty towards another's interests 
until we have discovered and achieved our own interests. For instance, 
is it not true that I first learn the value of another person's rights by 
discovering how much my rights are worth to me? Until I know the 
value of a dollar to me, I can scarcely know what a dollar is worth to an- 
other person, or how wrong it would be for me to take it from him. Until 
I know the value of my own liberty, I am in no proper position to feel 
the wickedness of abridging another person's liberty. If I have a home, 
a business, an honor, a lover, and appreciate them highly, I am a much 
safer man for other people to trust and fellowship than if I cherished 
none of these things, because in this way I have discovered the value of 
Mich things to every person, whoever he may be. 

Comradeship may be said then, I think, to be the society of the per- 
sonally virtuous and successful, and the only society which can be de- 
pended upon to last on its own merits. It does not do away with the 
principle of individualism, nor tend to weaken personal ambition or en- 
terprise. Indeed, it tends to strengthen selfhood by giving it a nobler 
and broader sphere for sympathy and action. If an individual, with 
his attention on himself only, feels an impulse to play his part well in 
the world for his own sake, will not that impulse be strengthened a 
thousand fold when he becomes vitally interested in a thousand other 
people, in a community or a. nation? The fact is, that the wider our com- 
radeship becomes in life, the more imperative becomes the demand on 
each of us to be and to do our utmost, and the more severe the penalty 
for failure. So, if a person really has an ambition to become a 
great big self, to grow upward and outward to the full extent of his 
capacity, the very best prescription fur him is comradeship, and more 

26 



and more of it. This is really the Scripture doctrine of " loving one's 
neighbor as one's self," because the best good of both is secured by it at 
the same time, and in the same proportion. 

In this direction I think we may say, truly, that the Sons of the 
American Revolution have an opportunity to exceed their more famous 
Forefathers. Those earlier men feared union, as they loved freedom. 
But with us union has become a passion. We fairly run towards an 
ideal which seemed to the men of the Revolution, at least to many of 
them, to be a menace. They came together because their necessities com- 
pelled them, rather than through love of confederacy. It was a long and 
painful discipline, in which the British red-coats did them, and us, a far 
greater service than was evident at the time. The Continentals were 
hammered together on the hot anvil of war. The pugnacity of George 
III unwittingly served well the very ideals he attacked so furiously. 

The problem of our time is different ; not to appreciate union, nor 

merely to achieve it, but to moralize it ; to make it intelligent and strong 

as well as comprehensive ; composed of the best people for the best ends 

of life. There is a comradeship of career, as well as of sentiment and 

good feeling. It is a pleasant thing to come together here at a dinner for 

a feast of reason and a flow of soul. It is congenial and profitable in 

its way. Differences, and even alienations, give way before " the flowing 

bowl." But the demand of our time is for " a more perfect union " ; a 

union of the virtuous and strong for the sake of the unvirtuous or the 

weak ; a union of the morally successful against the success of vice and 

intrigue. I do not know of anything more imperative to-day than that 

good people and strong people should get together, quite regardless of 

party preferences, creeds, or particular traditions, for the good that 

they can do as a competent, moral factor in social welfare. Surely, when 

the vultures are organizing, the eagles should be doing the same. Union 

is not a blessing unless it is a union of good men ; it may even be a 

direr curse. You of this city and State of New York, my native State, 

have done well recently in drawing this line of cleavage in an important 

election. You have elected a Governor of superb equipment, as his 

work in the past has sufficiently indicated. You have much to expect 

from his term of service in a high station among you, provided now 

that you stand together and uphold him in his difficult position until he 

has opportunity to make good, (applause), as he will do, if you do not 

go back on him. (Applause.) I live at a considerable distance from 

you of this city, but we of Massachusetts are intensely interested in this 

question of what you are going to do now that the issue of your recent 

election is decided. That was only the beginning of the fight for purer, 

27 



stronger government, and I say with all the spirit in me, that if this man, 
whom you have chosen to go before you, is not able to make good in the 
position to which you have lifted him, it will be because the best people 
of this state do not stand by him and support him in every edict of his 
conscientious, devoted life. (Applause.) There are enough good peo- 
ple in this state, perhaps several times over, to make him secure and con- 
quering throughout his administration, if they shall come together, and 
keep together, in a comradeship of moral purpose and endeavor. 

The old idea of a Kingdom of Heaven on earth is one which is ani- 
mating and directing much of our modern thinking and endeavoring, 
as well as our praying. We are not putting our heavenly hopes so far 
forward as we did formerly. The possibilities of the near future are 
growing upon us. The text, "Soberly, righteously and godly, in this 
present world," is appealing to us more than it used to do. The vision 
of "the holy city, coming down from God out of heaven," is growing 
more distinct as something which may be achieved in our time in part, and 
more perfectly later, perhaps soon, if we set ourselves to accomplish it. 
I am reminded of a man who said that he had a dream, and it came true. 
He dreamed that he was awake, and it came true in the morning. 
(Laughter.) Canon Freemantle's idea, expounded in his Bampton Lec- 
tures of 1883, of "The World as the Subject of Redemption," has gained 
an immense distribution in the past quarter of a century. People who 
used to pray fervently, though somewhat aimlessly, for the coming of 
the Kingdom of God, are now saying to one anther, "We can do it, if 
we will." Best of all, our sense of responsibility for doing it promptly 
and thoroughly is growing upon us, as the possibility of doing it grows 
clearer. "Enterprise and Comradeship" are becoming not merely pleas- 
ant ideals to be cherished, but moral mandates to be obeyed. We are 
under orders to be all that we possibly can be in ourselves as individuals. 
This is the first great law of being. We are under orders further to en- 
list in the service of the near future with all virtuous and vigorous souls. 
What is possible of accomplishment under such a view of life and duty, 
none of us can tell distinctly, but the outlook is simply roseate as a day- 
break in June. 

A few months ago I stood with a group of Americans at the gate of 
Buckingham Palace, London, awaiting the return of the King and Queen 
from Portsmouth. They were expected by the way of Victoria Station, 
and all eyes were turned in that direction. The day was superb. The 
city was all peace and beauty, so far as an observer could see ; a fit 
preparation for the return of their majesties. Presently they appeared, 
riding in an open carriage; the King sitting up very straight and un- 

28 



conscious of our presence, as I suppose a King should be ; the Queen 
smiling and bowing graciously to her admirers at the gate. The royal 
couple passed swiftly by, and drove under the great arch of the palace 
from our view. Soon after, the King's banner was flung to the evening 
breeze from the mast above the front door of the palace, and the carriage 
of the Prime Minister of England bore him to a prompt interview with 
his Sovereign. It was all very impressive and appealing to the imagina- 
tion. My mind refused to leave it as we wended our way homeward,, 
and gradually it stretched out in sympathy towards those citizens of the 
British realm whose stations in life are far removed from the dignity,, 
the glory, and the welfare of their capital city. I though of those in 
remote parts of the British world, whose fortunes are primitive and per- 
haps distressing, who might at that very hour be saying to themselves : 
"O King Edward, I wish that thy kingdom might come, and thy will be 
done, in this neck-of-the-woods, as it is done in London" ; then, being 
cheered by that thought, might go back to their work on the frontier 
with a lighter heart, and a braver face. But, is not that precisely what 
we are taught to pray for in the prayer which is fast becoming the as- 
piration of all good men : "Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed 
be Thy name. Thy kingdom come (in earth). Thy will be done in 
earth, as it is in heaven, etc." Every line of that prayer begins in heav- 
en, the throne of all dear ideals, and stretches towards this world, our 
home, in promise and blessing. The world is only a farther colony of 
the divine Kingdom, all of which is sometime to be transformed into 
a heavenly image ; and our business here, I take it, is to help that trans- 
formation along as fast as we are able. Is not that a splendid ideal and 
ambition? Is there any nobler resolution than a sincere purpose and 
endeavor on the part of each of us, that so dear an ideal shall not lose 
its early fulfilment through any weakness or faithlessness on our part? 
For is it not true, as Julia Ward Howe has instructed us : 

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat: 
O, be swift, my soul, to answer him ! be jubilant, my feet ! 
Our God is marching on." (Loud applause.) 

PRESIDENT MARBLE. 
For reasons of modesty, it was not considered advisable for us to- 
print on the program the names of all our speakers ; and not only for 
that reason, but we thought we might have a surprise in store for you. 

I take pleasure in presenting to you Mrs. Donald McLean, President- 
General of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who will speak 
for the Daughters. (Applause.) 

29 



SPEECH BY MRS. DONALD McLEAN. 

Mr. President, your Excellency, my co-president in our national 
work: — Engaging candor is always a proof of the sweet, confiding na- 
ture of woman, and that in turn is ever a call upon the protecting care 
of man. As I wish to stimulate instantly that sentiment of chivalrous 
protection, I shall engage in that engaging candor and tell you that this 
would have been a most brilliant and spontaneous outpouring of ex- 
temporary eloquence if I had not been warned beforehand by the Presi- 
dent. It is very hard for one who likes to have a little prestige by 
talking extemporaneously to have been fully warned, and yet we know 
very well that a president can show no greater kindness to another presi- 
dent than to put her wise in secret as to what is going to take place in 
public. I appreciate that chivalry, Mr. President, and in response I 
shall try to say a word of greeting, although I am so femininely fatuous 
that I never know entirely what I intend to say to an audience composed 
largely of men until I have heard them say it first. (Laughter.) 

I have had extraordinary advantages to-night. I have had the ju- 
diciary on one side, and if I speak with a little more of grave dogmatism 
than usual, you will understand the reason. If I speak like a Delphic 
oracle of feminine statesmanship, it is because I have been near one whom 
we know not only as our coming Governor, but for whom we see in the 
future far greater things, if the Governor of Xew York can ever be 
eclipsed by anything. 

I would say to our bold Lochinvar from Michigan, we welcome \ou. 
1 will tell you what happened when the Daughters of the Revolution 
there had a banquet. The men were not even allowed to come into the 
room. The Reverend Doctor has come where he can be recognized. 
(Laughter.) I wish to assure him, however, that however much he 
may deplore the voice of the croaker (Croker), it is still heard in the 
land. I do not know that it was entirely an unwelcome sound during 
the late campaign. (Laughter.) I wonder if that meliorating party 
which has been called to our attention might even meliorate the sound 
of the croaker's voice when it croaked in the way it did in the last few 
weeks. 

There are many things that the Daughters of the American Revolu- 
tion are doing, but chiefly they are fitting themselves to be the compan- 
ions of the representatives of high statesmanship in this country — not 

30 



to gratify masculine vanity, because, of course, none of us has ever dis- 
ci 

covered that quality in the masculine ranks. These women know no 
higher latitude towards which they may aspire than that of becoming 
the true soul companions of the men who have not only made, but will 
keep and preserve our nation. I believe it to be the case that the men 
and women of this country and the American men and women who, af- 
ter all, are concentrated in the Sons and Daughters of the American 
Revolution, will be the saviors of the country. (Applause.) 

It may have been a welcome sound to our Governor to have heard 
our National President, Mr. Pugsley, quote from one of the President's 
sayings, that it mattered not very much whether we are Republicans 
or Democrats ; it may be welcome to our Governor when he takes his 
seat, surrounded as he may be by his co-officers. I would say that it 
may not matter much whether we are Republicans or Democrats, but 
it does matter that we are patriots. And I would assure you — not that 
I dare to enter this sacred field of politics, but with the charming irre- 
sponsibility that comes to one who has no real care in casting a ballot 
and therefore can form and express opinions without any great conse- 
quence — that the day is coming when the parties as they are now lined up 
will be no more in this land, and he who is wise will pin his faith to the 
patriots. (Applause.) The Patriotic Party is the coming party in the 
United States of America, and all should know it. 

The Daughters ask nothing more than to be the Joans of Arc coming 
forward with the prophecy of restoring the king to his own. We say to 
you that we daughters are engaged in the great work of teaching Ameri- 
canism, in order that an American may be worthy of the highest type 
within his country, and that highest type is its greatest manhood. (Ap- 
plause.) We are now building a hall in New York and a memorial 
monument in Washington which will cost one-half million dollars, but 
which will be as nothing besides its great crystallization of happy mem- 
ories of the days gone by when we women have felt that the patriotic 
blood flowed through our own veins and gave us the womanly strength 
to have faith in our ancestors and faith in the future. We do not build 
in dead stone alone. We are now arranging that from this hall which 
we are building there shall be spread forth lectures upon American his- 
tory so free to the public that all who will may read. We number now 
fifty odd thousand. I have recently come from visits to the Northwest 
and Middle West, where the growtlf and the love of the virility of the 
•continent astonished even myself. 

You all know that if I have one fear in this world, it is of the super- 
abounding intelligence of man. I might have been afraid to come here 

31 



had I not been placed in a far worse predicament in the State of Iowa- 
There I was welcomed to the great University by the Dean of the Law 
School and the President, and made to feel that, after all, the intellect of" 
woman was on a plane which could be recognized. I was invited to ad- 
dress 1,200 students on that occasion, and while I recognized the fact 
that I might not be able to do it, I could not have the courage to refuse. 
I would be derelict to the sacred cause of my sex if I failed to respond,, 
so I humbly accepted the invitation to address that body of students, up- 
on what topic, Mr. President — upon football, if you please. Fancy the 
position in which I found myself; but remembering the training that I 
football game within their reach for several years previously, I essayed, 
the task with confidence. I think those 1,200 students knew more about 
football than I did, but when I was through and the meeting was over 
I think that we all knew more about each other. 

The President of that University told me that his students, those 
1,200 boys, had raised with enormous jackscrews, a great, heavy stone 
building and had transplanted it and placed it on firm foundations where 
they most desired it to be. It was customary there to have great teams 
of horses attached to these jackscrews, but they used man power; and 
I feel that that is the great secret of all Americanism — man power be- 
hind and concentrated with all the other great man power of the country 
which, by putting the hand to the screw, lifts and raises the nation's 
material existence and raises its highest ideals in the face of the world. 
It is the individual concentration of power that makes for the good of 
American men, of American women ; and I feel that the Daughters of 
the American Revolution, when they stand as they do, willing to aid' 
and asking the men only to give women their moral support, intelligent 
advice and constant approval, constitute a great factor for good. With- 
out such support and approval, the concentrated woman is too unhappy 
to take up any work ; but the approval of the sons and the work of the 
daughters will bring a grand, completed whole which will make us all 
long for something beyond the foolish pride of ancestry. It is this that 
makes us live up to the example of love before us. Heaven has given 
us one great gift that you men would not take from us and which we 
would not barter for every gift of worldly success, and that is the fact 
that we give, of our own bodies, the citizens to make this country what 
it is. (Applause.) We are the maternity of the country; we stand for 
you, the generic women of America. It is to us that you must come to 
see that your citizens breathe in at our knees that which we place around: 
them. I would quote to you these words : 



32 



"The bravest battle that ever was fought — 
Shall I tell you where and when ? 
On the map of the world you will find it not, 
It was fought by the mothers of men." 

(Loud applause.) 

PRESIDENT MARBLE. 

I feel that it would hardly be just to the members of the bench who 
were present here to-night, who have been somewhat maligned by some 
of our speakers, not to give them a chance to defend themselves, and as 
I have a personal friend here to-night, I feel that I would be unjust to 
him if I did not give him a chance to refute the statements that have 
been made. Let me say that I did not give him any warning. I call 
upon the Hon. John Proctor Clarke, of the Appellate Bench. 



33 



SPEECH OF 
HON. JOHN PROCTOR CLARKE. 

This is the first time I have been called upon since I have been on 
the bench. I feel like answering as the boy did in school, "not prepared." 
Although a man of peace, I love war, and as I feel that I sit here be- 
tween two of the greatest exemplars of the warlike spirit in the world — 
the President of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the son 
of our greatest General, the greatest war lord this country has produced 
in a hundred years, I feel in a warlike mood. I glory in the deed.s of 
the soldiers of America, looking back through all its history from its 
earliest beginnings to the latest fights. I see in the soldier, whether 
regular or volunteer, no diminution in the spirit of sacrifice, in the spirit 
•of loyalty and in the spirit of initiative. I recall in the last few years 
■over in the Philippines, such pieces of work as was done in the rescue of 
Gilmore, and, in the Cuban war, the bravery of Victor Blue. The brav- 
ery displayed in these instances was as fine as anything recorded in his- 
tory. I saw .250,000 young men come to the call of the colors in the 
Spanish war. There is something in the Divine Providence which says 
that once in every generation we will test whether the red blood has run 
out or not. We had the Revolution, the War of 1812. the War of 1848, 
and the Rebellion of 1861-4-5, and we had the late Spanish war. Dur- 
ing every generation in the history of the country the blood has been 
taken out and put into a microscope, so to say, to see whether the pa- 
triotic germ was there doing its duty, and it has been found there every 
time, and so it will be. But it is something more than war. We have 
got peace, and we have got harder battles to fight in peace. I stand al- 
most humbly and inarticulately when I say that in the position of Gover- 
nor and upon the bench we stand as the fortification from which, more 
than any other place, are to be led out the hosts which are to fight the 
•great battles of peace and insure to this country liberty under the law, 
liberty under the law ! It is our place to teach to the young, to teach to 
the immigrant, to teach to the half-sane, the half-baked, the people led 
astray by false dogma, taught by false demagogues through headlines 
and appeals to class hatred and passion — to teach to them through the 
orderly process of law that there is no place in this Government for any- 
thing but law and order. (Applause.) I say, as against those forces 

34 



-of ignorance and vice and crime and good intentions wrongly led, we 
have, through every avenue — from the pulpit, from the bench, from the 
school-house, from the lecture platform, and, occasionally from the din- 
ner table, to teach to the half-baked and the half-educated and the good- 
intentioned who are wrongly led, the course they should pursue to be- 
come estimable citizens. Every one of those classes may be a menace 
to the community if badly led and badly taught. We have to teach that, 
after all, liberty, peace, prosperity and good citizenship can only succeed 
under an orderly government of law, and that to rectify the evil it is not 
necessary to burn houses, to lead mobs, to break all the laws or to change 
all the laws ; all that is necessary to do is to observe the spirit of the law, 
to observe the Golden Rule, which is the foundation of all law, and to 
teach, by our conduct in the pulpit, on the bench, in the school-house, at 
the bar, in public and private life, respect for the rights of others and a 
determination to insure their respect for ours. (Applause.) 

PRESIDENT MARBLE. 

Now, ladies and gentlemen, the 17th annual banquet of the Empire 
State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution is completed. 



35 



PATRIOTISM AND PEACE. 



Sermon Delivered Before the Empire State Society of the Sons of the 

American Revolution, by Rev. Frank Oliver Hall, D. D., 

Chaplain of the Society, at the Church of the 

Divine Paternity, February 24th, 1907. 

II Tim. 2: 4. — "Take your share of hardships as a good soldier of 
Jesus Christ." 

The day of the soldier is passing away. The time will come when 
armies will be reduced to the size necessary for the performance of inter- 
national police service and the chief duty of navies will he to protect the 
merchant and fishing fleets upon the high seas, to reduce piracy and smug- 
gling and to keep barbarous nations in conformity to civilized law. Pub- 
lic sentiment sets steadily in this direction. In spite of the fact that 
armies were never so large as they are to-day ; in spite of the fact that 
never in the history of the world was so much wealth expended for the 
creation of gigantic and expensive warships ; in spite of the fact that the 
bloodiest war of modern times has recently been fought in Manchuria ; 
in spite of all this, yea, because of all this, the day of the soldier is draw- 
ing to its close. The increasing perfection of the instruments of war- 
fare is sealing the doom of war. The time is near when nations cannot 
go to war without courting the destruction of both parties engaged. War 
has become so enormously expensive in wealth and in life as to threaten 
financial bankruptcy and vital degeneration to nations who engage in it. 
If the art of destruction developes as rapidly during the next twenty-five 
years as it has during the past twenty-five, the next generation will be 
obliged to go to a lunatic asylum to find men that advocate war. War 
.vill be equivalent to national suicide. The railroad, the steamship, the 
stock company, the intermingling of all nationalities made possible by 
perfected means of communication, all point to the ultimate overthrow 
of the institution of warfare. All classes and conditions of men are look- 
ing for the day when nations shall lay down their arms. Capitalists fear 
war because their investments are in all countries and their markets in 
every port. The great labor organizations are a unit in condemning war. 
Kings and emperors and presidents are advocating peace. The day of 
the soldier is passing away. 

36 



Add to this the increasing sympathy between all classes and conditions 
•of men. We have reached the point in human development when the 
thought of cruelty or unnecessary suffering is intolerable to us. We 
read the story of massacre, burning, killing and cruelty of the past and 
our hearts turn sick. The world is rebellious against the awful waste 
and the unspeakable misery of war, even at its best. Provision has al- 
ready been made and is steadily being perfected for the abolition of war. 
We have in embryo a supreme court of the nations, the business of which 
i." to establish a code of international law and to provide for the settle- 
ment of international disputes by the arbitrament of justice and not by 
the arbitrament of arms. The parliament of man and the federation of 
the world is sure to become an established fact. The day of the soldier 
is passing away. 

If any one doubts let him compare public sentiment of our time with 
the public sentiment in the time of the man who wrote this exhortation, 
"Be a good soldier of Jesus Christ." In that day the soldier's was the 
only honorable occupation. All other occupations were held in con- 
tempt. The way to public preferment was through the army. No one 
would have thought of promoting a working man or a merchant to any 
place in public authority. The young man of ambition sought the army 
as a matter of course. That was the open door to advancement. And 
this held true almost to the present day ; it still holds true in some coun- 
tries. But in our own country, in England, in France, the majority of 
men holding the highest places of honor and trust have sprung not from 
the warrior but from the peaceful Classes. All things point to the coming 
of the reign of peace on earth. 

When that day arrives we shall have lost something unless we man- 
age somehow to preserve the soldierly virtues. There are certain quali- 
ties of the soldier with which we cannot afford to dispense. If we do 
we shall have lost more by peace than the world could have lost by war. 
It is this fact that has led some great and good men like Ruskin and 
Martineau to advocate the perpetuation of war. Said Ruskin : "The vice 
and injustice of the world are constantly springing anew and are only 
to be subdued by battle ; the keepers of law and order must always be 
soldiers." In another place, the same author says, "War is the founda- 
tion of all the arts, and it is the foundation of all the high virtues and 
faculties of men. It was very strange to me to discover this ; and very 
dreadful — but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact. The common no- 
tion that peace and the virtues of civil life flourish together, I found to 
be wholly untenable. Peace and the vices of civil life only flourish to- 
gether. We talk of peace and learning, and peace and plenty, and of 

37 



peace and civilization ; but I found that these were not the words which 
the Muse of History coupled together ; that on her lips the words were 
peace and sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and corruption, peace 
and death." 

I have not quoted this because I think it absolutely true, but because 
it contains a most important truth, that is that human society is kepi 
sweet and wholesome only by the exercise of certain qualities character- 
istic of the good soldier. And the danger of peace, the danger of pros- 
perity, the danger of the tremendous increase of wea'lth and luxury of 
the present day is that these stern soldierly qualities may be atrophied 
because there is no strenuous call for their exercise. 

We love the soldier because he is the embodiment of the spirit of 
sacrifice for the common good. 'A few years ago I had pointed out to 
me the man who raised the first company of Massachusetts volunteers 
for the Civil War. He was only a small farmer, a very commonplace 
individual. No one had mistrusted that there was anything heroic about 
him. One day he was engaged in no more poetic occupation than dress- 
ing a slaughtered hog in his barn, sleeves rolled up and hands stained 
red by his work. Some one passing brought word that President Lin- 
coln had called for seventy-five thousand troops to put down the insur- 
rection. In an instant his knife went into a post at his side and without 
pausing to pull down his sleeves or wash his hands, he went out into the 
street and began the work of raising a company of volunteers, and that 
night he telegraphed to the Governor in Boston lo expect him on the 
morrow with 'his company. The next day they arrived and he went all 
through the awful struggle, receiving in his body the wounds of the en- 
emy, and when the war was over went back to his daily toil. I know 
nothing about the man's character other than this incident but we honor 
him because of mis one redeeming quality. 

When the good of the country calls everything else must wait. Here 
am I, send me. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War Robert Collyer was a minister in 
the city of Chicago. When the battle of Fort Donelson was fought he 
and his people gathered lint and bandages and medicine, and he with a 
band of helpers started immediately for the battle field to be of service 
to the wounded. When he came back he told his people what he had 
seen. T recall one incident. He told about a laid, born on a farm in Illi- 
nois — a country bumpkin — an ignoramus — converted at a revival in a 
schoolhonse where the noise would have driven you or me insane. No 
one would have seen a hero in this awkward lad. But he loved his coun- 
try and went marching toward the battle front and stood like one of 

38 



Napoleon's Old Guard until he was shot down, and then dragged himself 
to some hushes hard by and managed somehow to get himself onto his 
knees and fell to praying, not for himself but that the God of battles 
would give the victory to the friends of freedom, and there they found 
him with his hands clasped, and his sightless eyes turned toward heaven. 
There were thousands like him who died with absolute devotion to what 
they felt to be right and to their country's welfare. 

Now, I hope that the time will never come when the necessities of 
our country will call for the lives of her sons on the battle field, but the 
time will never come when our country can dispense with this spirit on 
the part of her citizens. 

What think you this country needs to-day more than anything else? 
One will say, "More and better laws. Laws against the tyranny of labor; 
laws against the extortions of monopoly ; strenuous laws against bribery 
and corruption." But a law has no power in itself. "So much force as 
it has in the lives of living men, such is its strength," cries Emerson. 
There are laws enough upon the statute books of the state of New York 
to make this city as holy as the New Jerusalem. The trouble with us is 
not that we lack law, but that we lack the spirit of patriotism in the heart 
of the individual in the time of peace. Must we wait for bloody strife 
before we can be patriots, ready to sacrifice for our country, and ready 
to brand with contempt him who lifts his hand against the common 
good? Do you know what they did during the Civil War with men 
called "bounty-jumpers," men who enlisted for a price to serve the coun- 
try and at the first opportunity deserted to enlist again in another place 
for a second fee? Do you know what they did with such fellows when 
caught? They hung them to the limb of the nearest tree, or left them 
riddled with bullets. Do you recall what Abraham Lincoln did with 
Vallandigham, the renegade, who encouraged desertion from the northern 
armies by preaching treason? He sent him to prison and from prison 
to banishment. Do you know what we should do to-day with bribe giv- 
ers and bribe takers, the bounty jumpers of peace, men who sell fran- 
chises, and public officers who prove unfaithful to their trust? If we 
had the spirit of the soldier we would ship them to the African or Alas- 
kan wilderness with the information that if they returned they must ex- 
pect the fate of a bounty jumper. That is what we need to-day in our 
American life, the spirit of the honorable soldier who will die before he 
will do anything dishonorable, and who demands that dishonor shall 
have no place in the lives of American citizens. The shame of the pres- 
ent time is that we hold our liberty so lightly. Why did the men of 
'76 suffer and hunger and freeze and die of disease? In order that you 

39 



and I might be citizens of a free and honorable country. Why did the 
men of '61 lay down their lives by the thousand and fertilize bv their 
blood the fields of the South ? In order that American institutions might 
be preserved. And we poor weaklings at this moment are allowing our 
institutions to be honeycombed with corruption and turned over to rings 
and grafters, combinations of criminals. The shame of the political cor- 
ruption does not belong alone to the politician. It belongs to us all. 
God baptize us all with the spirit of the soldier who holds the honor of 
his country above his personal comfort and happiness, above his very life. 
This is the first virtue of the soldier, a disposition to sacrifice one's 
individual welfare for the public good and without which in the life of 
the individual citizen it is certain that a state cannot endure. The op- 
posite of this is the disposition to corrupt the political life or the social 
life or the commercial life of the nation for one's own enrichment or 
honor or aggrandizement. That is treason, and the man who thrusts a 
lie, or a bribe, or a dishonorable act into the life, of the country is as much 
a traitor as Benedict Arnold. 

Another virtue characteristic of the good soldier is courage. I some- 
times think that it takes a higher quality of courage to be a good citizen 
in time of peace than it does to be a good soldier in time of war. This 
is by no means to disparage the courage of the men who face death on 
the battlefield. I love the story of the bravery of men which carried 
them to certain death in the storming of forts or in the contests of navies. 
But battles are fought in company. Men have the encouragement of 
comradeship. Each one knows that the eyes of his fellows are upon 
him, and that any flinching on his part will be noted. There is magic 
in "together." Men will be brave in regiments who might be cowardly 
alone. The courage demanded of the citizen in time of peace is the 
courage to stand alone. 

I recall with satisfaction an incident in the life of Thomas B. Reed, 
told me in private by a friend who was one of the political powers of his 
day, and which can be told in public now that Mr. Reed has gone to the 
reward of all brave men. It was at the time when he was widely spoken 
of as a possible president of the Republic, when he had earned the right 
to that honor by long, faithful .and disinterested public service. The 
gentleman to whom I refer, with others who believed in Mr. Reed, went 
to him and told him what he must do in order to win the nomination 
which would be equivalent to an election. And mind you, he coveted 
this honor. It was more to him than life. They sat and talked with 
him for an hour, telling him what was necessary in order to achieve his 
worthy ambition. Some people must be placated. Such-and-such 

40 



pledges must be made. He must bind himself to this man, tie himself 
to that interest, make a pledge here, a pledge there, a pledge somewhere 
else. That would unite all factions in his favor, and success was as- 
sured. "He let us talk an hour," said this gentleman, "and when we 
had mapped out the campaign and were sanguine of success, he calmly 
said, 'Gentlemen, I want to be president. If the American people want 
me in the office I am ready to serve them. It is my dearest ambition, 
but if in order to become president of the Republic I must make a single 
pledge or do anything that will compromise me in that exalted office, I 

shall remain a private citizen. Well," said his friend, "he rose very 

high in our estimation, but that settled his fate. He could not be presi- 
dent." You know the sequel. He retired from public office, and a few 
years later died a disappointed man ; but I want to tell you that whether 
history recognizes the fact or not, he was a greater man than he would 
have been if he had become president by compromising his honor. 

It takes the supreme quality of courage to stand alone for what one 
thinks to be right in the face of pleading friends and the subtle tempta- 
tions by which one may be induced to shade the truth for his own ad- 
vancement. What we need to-day in public and private affairs is the 
courage to be poor and honest rather than rich and corrupt ; the courage 
to stand alone in self respect, rather than to win the respect of others 
through sharp practice ; the courage to be laughed at as a fool and sneer- 
ed at as a fanatic, as men who have stood in advance of their time have 
been laughed at and sneered at since time began. 

The final virtue of the soldier which I shall mention this evening, 
very much needed in our civil life, is the one specially emphasized in the 
letter of Paul to the young man Timothy. "Be ready to take your share 
of hardships as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Think of the hardships 
that a soldier is called upon to endure. I have sat around the campfire 
with soldiers of the Civil War and heard them tell of incredible hard- 
ships. Some aspects of war are glorious, some indescribably hideous. 
Think of men dressed in rags, gaunt with hunger, racked with disease, 
sleeping on the frozen ground without blankets, but marching and fight- 
ing and dying without a murmur. Oh, the horror and the hideousness 
of war ! But the good soldier endures hardships and does not com- 
plain. Endure hardships as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 

I once turned to a young man, a member of a class that I was in- 
structing, and said, "John, do you call yourself a Christian?" And his 
answer was a frank and dogged "No." "Why not?" He said, "I will 
tell you. You know my business. I am employed by a contractor to 
superintend the erection of buildings for which he has made the contract. 

41 



I know what he has agreed to do. He has agreed to supply .<-:uch a 
quality of mortar or brick or timber or paint. The contract will call for 
the first quality of mortar. I am told to prepare a second or a third 
quality and use that. I do it. I am a party to a cheat. Why do I do 
it ? To keep my place. There are twenty men who would instantly be 
ready to take my place if I were to lose it. I should lose it if I were to 
refuse to be party to a cheat. Jesus Christ would not have been party 
to a cheat. As a carpenter he never put rotten timber into the constiuc- 
tion of his work. I do. I am not a Christian." Then he turned to the 
rest of the young men in the class and said, "How about you? Are you 
not in the same position?" They agreed to a man that they were, and, 
therefore, that they were not Christians. I think they were right. No 
man is a good soldier of Jesus Christ who does in his business what he 
would be ashamed to acknowledge in the presence of the great Cap- 
tain. Now, what is the word for such young men — old men — all men? 
"Endure hardships as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Lose your place, 
if you must. Go hungry if necessary. Starve, if that is inevitable. Be 
a tramp if society forces you to be one. But be an honest tramp. Starve 
with self respect. Demand of yourself in civil life expression of the 
same virtues you would demand of a soldier of the Republic in military 
life. Do not whine. Don't compain. But be a man. Every man who 
is party to a cheat is party to the overthrow of the best in our social 
life. Every man who accepts pay in return for doing what he knows 
to be a wrong is bribed as much as any judge who for money renders a 
false verdict, or legislator who for gold passes a law to the public detri- 
ment. There is no hope for the purification of politics until the lives of 
the individual citizens are pure. Our public officials are what we make 
them. They are expression of the public life. If the people of Phila- 
delphia are robbed by their City Council it is because they deserve to be 
robbed. If the administration of the City of New York is corrupt, it 
is because we deserve to have it corrupt. We choose our own generals 
and captains and lieutenants. They are what we make them. We shall 
have good officers when we ourselves are good soldiers of Jesus Christ. 
The spirit of self sacrifice for the public good; courage to stand 
alone; willingness to endure our share of hardships without complaint. 
Ruskin was right with the change of a single sentence, "The vice and 
injustice of the world are constantly springing anew and are only to be 
subdued by battle. The keepers of law and order must always possess 
the qualities of the good soldier." "Take your share of hardships as 
a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 



42 



JOHN HANCOCK: 
THE MAN AND THE PATRIOT. 



A Paper Read Before the Empire State Society Sons of the American 
Revolution, New York City, March 19, 1907. 



By Allen C. Thomas, A. M., Professor of History in Haverford 
College, Pennsylvania. 

"Let us now praise famous men, 
Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, 
And were men renowned for their power, 
Giving counsel by their understanding, 
Leaders of the people by their counsels. 
Rich men furnished with ability, 
Living peaceably in their habitations : 
All these were honored in their generations, 
And were a glory in their days. 

There be of them that have left a name behind them, 
To declare their praises. 

And some there be which have no memorial ; 
Who have perished as though they had not been, 
And are become as though they had not been born." 

(Ecclesiasticus, 44: 1-9) 

These words of the Son of Sirach, the ancient Hebrew sage, in the, 
Apocrypha, are strangely applicable to John Hancock, the hero of Massa- 
chusetts in the eighteenth century, the idol of her people, " whose noble 
signature to the document of gravest import in all our annals — that won- 
derful signature, so bold, so defiant and decided in its every line and 
curve, has become almost of itself, his passport to the remembrance and 
his warrant to the admiration of posterity." (A. Gilman, Atlantic 
Monthly, XI: 707.) 

It is certainly one of the strangest things in our history that to this 
day there is no adequate biography of John Hancock. It is true that 
there are one or two brief sketches of his life, one of his attractive and 
charming wife, a few magazine articles; but a biography such as those 
of Samuel Adams, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and a host of men more 
or less distinguished during the Revolutionary era, does not exist for 

43 



him who at the time stood in the very forefront of public affairs and 
who risked life, property, and all that a man holds most dear, for his 
country. Surely the man who was for nigh thirty years the most popu- 
lar citizen of Massachusetts, deserves better treatment than he has re- 
ceived at the hands of most historians, and from the biographers of his 
contemporaries. 

It is idle to deny that he had infirmities of temper ; who would not 
have such, if he were the martyr to gout as was Hancock? It is also 
undeniable that he was afflicted with attacks of vanity, or something 
which closely resembled it. 

He is charged, when President of Congress, with living in fine style 
at the expense of the country, while the soldiers were starving. But it 
is not stated that he drew no salary as President, or that he was not re- 
paid for his outlay until the war was practically over (1783), when he 
was voted by Congress "$3,248 in full for household and other ex- 
penses for two years and five months, being the time he acted as Presi- 
dent of Congress." (Journals of Congress, March 31, 1783.) Doubt- 
less this was paid, if it was paid, for I believe there is no record of the 
payment, in the depreciated money of those trying days. He is charged 
with being a smuggler ; but in the eyes of many eminent and honorable 
men of that day in New England, smuggling was considered not only 
not reprehensible, but even praiseworthy. He is said to have been be- 
low mediocrity in ability; but his letters, official papers, and his recom- 
mendations to the General Court do not indicate such a condition of 
mind. He had numerous detractors in his own time, and they have not 
been wanting in our day. One of the latest of these, the somewhat 
supercilious "Philistine" who gives "heart to heart talks to his flock," 
and describes "Little Journeys" to homes of various kinds, has been 
pleased to term him "a defaulter," "a smuggler," "a man who joined 
the patriots to save his own neck." "Those that live in glass houses 
should not throw stones, is a proverb old, and of excellent wit." 

Whatever ground there may be for some of the charges against him, 
we must acknowledge that his dilatoriness in settling his accounts as 
Treasurer of Harvard College is inexplicable. 

That Hancock has been neglected and undervalued, and neglected 
because undervalued, is partly due to the fact that for the average in- 
quirer the sources of information are very limited, and because the full- 
est and most accessible accounts are hostile to him. Many, if not most, 
of our modern statements concerning him may be traced to Wells's Life 
of Samuel Adams. This work, a most interesting and valuable one, is 
written by the great-grandson of Adams, and no opportunity is lost to 

44 



\ 



magnify his ancestor, even at the' expense of others. Samuel Adams,, 
however, needs no such bolstering. The tone of this book is distinctly 
adverse to Hancock, and almost every good thing which he did is ascrib- 
ed to the influence of Samuel Adams. 

For a hundred years only a simple slab marked his grave, but in 
1896, on the motion of a negro member of the Massachusetts Legisla- 
ture, a simple monument to John Hancock was erected in the old Gran- 
ary Burying Ground in Boston, at the public expense. But the interest 
then aroused was short-lived. 

It is not claimed that he was intellectually great ; he must be placed 
considerable below the Adamses, Otis, and Warren ; but that he was no 
mediocre man, or "empty barrel," as he has been called more than once, 
his record indicates very decidedly. Were there time, it would be of 
interest to give a chronological record of his public life, but suffice it to 
say that a man who was sent to the legislature continuously for eight 
years in troublous times, who was on every important committee, moder- 
ator of important public meetings, representative to the Continental Con- 
gress, President of it for two and a half years, re-elected in his absence. 
Governor of such a State as Massachusetts for eleven years, and chair- 
man of the convention to consider the adoption of the Federal Consti- 
tution, which was finally adopted largely through his influence — must 
have had more than mediocre ability. Surely such a record cannot be 
accounted for by the fact that he was the richest man in the Province, 
whose position, wealth, and name were wanted in the struggle for free- 
dom, and that therefore he was led, possibly flattered, or cajoled by 
stronger men, into becoming and remaining an advocate of independence. 
It is, perhaps, allowable to call him, as has been said of him elsewhere, 
the "Alcibiades of the rebellious little Puritan town," but it is far too 
little to say of him that, "He was valuable chiefly from his picturesque - 
ness." (H. C. Lodge, "Boston," p. 176.) 

While there are a few incidents in his life which need elucidating, 
a few perhaps somewhat to his discredit, but more, many more to his 
great credit, it is not unlikely that the results of a careful, scholarly re- 
search would lead us to unite with the mature and sober judgment o'r 
John Adams, who wrote of him in 1818, "I can say with truth that I 
profoundly admired him, and more profoundly loved him. ... I 

knew Mr. Hancock from his cradle to his grave. He was radically gen- 
erous and benevolent. . . . He became an example to all young 

men of the town. Wholly devoted to business, he was as regular anl 
punctual at his store as the sun is in its course. ..... Though f 

never injured or justly offended him, and though I spent much of my 

45 



time, and suffered unknown anxiety, in defending his property, reputa- 
tion, and liberty from persecution, I cannot but reflect upon myself for 
not paying him more respect than I did in his life time. . . . Nor 
were his talents or attainments inconsiderable. They were far superior 
to many who have been much more celebrated. He had a great deal of 
political sagacity and penetration into men. He was by no means a con- 
temptible scholar or orator." (Works of John Adams, X., 260, 261.) 

John Hancock, the Patriot, was born in Quincy, Mass., Jan. 12, 1737; 
he was the third to bear that name, being the son, and grandson of a 
John Hancock, both Congregational ministers. His father died when 
he was seven years old, and the little boy was adopted by Thomas Han- 
cock, his wealthy merchant uncle in Boston. He was educated at the 
Boston Latin School, and at Harvard College, which he entered at, what 
seems to us, the early age of thirteen. He was graduated from that in- 
stitution in 1754. He at once entered his uncle's counting house. He 
applied himself so diligently to his work, that, in six years, 1760, when 
he was but twenty-three, he was sent to London to represent the house. 
He crossed the ocean with ex-Governor Thomas Pownall — a name well 
known in colonial annals. Young Hancock seems to have made the 
most of his opportunities in London, and to have acted with entire satis- 
faction to his uncle. 

While Hancock was in England, George II. — "Snuffy old drone from 
the German hive," as Oliver Wendell Holmes calls him — died, and John 
Hancock witnessed the funeral ceremonies. He wrote from London, 
Oct. 29, 1760: "Sunday last the Prince of Wales was proclaimed King 
thro' ye city with pomp and joy. His coronation, I am told, will not be 
till April ; that I can't yet determine whether I shall stay to see it, but 
rather think I shall, as it is the grandest thing 1 shall ever meet with." 
He did remain, and later was presented at court, and it is said, though 
on what authority I know not, that the young monarch, George III., 
treated the handsome, rich, young American with great consideration, 
and presented him with a gold snuff-box. How little could either have 
dreamed that fifteen years later John Hancock would be President of that 
Congress which should declare the independence of the American Col- 
onies, or that the complaisant monarch would set a price on the head of 
the courteous American. 

Hancock returned to Boston in 1761, and shortly before leaving Lon- 
don, wrote: "I shall with satisfaction bid adieu to this grand place, with 
all its pleasurable enjoyments and tempting scenes, for more substantial 
pleasures, which I promise myself in the enjoyment of my friends in 
America." 

46 



On the first of January, 1763, his uncle took him into the firm, and 
•thus announces the fact to their London correspondents : "Gentn. I am 
to acquaint you, that I have at last Got my affairs into such a Scituation 
as that I have this Day Taken my Nephew Mr. John Hancock, into 
Partnership with me having had long Experience of his Uprightness, 
& greai Abilities for Business, as that I can heartily Recommend him 
to Your Friendship and Correspondence, which wish may be long & 
happy." 

Thomas Hancock was much out of health when the partnership was 
formed, for, like his nephew, he suffered often and severely from gout. 

Some of the letter books of the Hancock firm have been preserved. 
The letters in them not only indicate the character of the business trans- 
acted, but also throw an interesting and curious light upon the customs, 
foibles, luxuries, and necessities of those days, for the firm owned their 
vessels and both exported and imported goods in great varkty. Among 
the imports were, "scarlet bays [baize], German serge, bottles, olive oil, 
wines, nails, coals, etc." In 1763, orders were sent for ''250 bbls. Pork, 
100 firkins of Butter, and some beef." Another time for foolscap paper, 
.and grindstones. To one letter a postscript is added : "Our J. H. asks 
the fav'r that Mr. Harrison will please to get made & sent him 1 neatt 
Bag wig and 1 neatt Bob wig. Fashionable & of a light colour, the 
size of Mr. Barnard's will nearly suit, the Tie wig Mr. Birch made which 
J. H. Brought with him fitted very well. The cost of them Mr. Harri- 
son will charge in his little accott with J. H." 

Again there is a special order for Mr. Thomas Hancock (July, 1764), 
"Please to send by the 'Boston Packett' a covering for a Bed, to be had 
at Mr. Fisher's, the Eiderdown Warehouse in Litchfield street, Oxford 
market, pray be very particular in the choice of a good one, as it is for 
our T. H.'s own use, in the Gout, about nine or Ten Guineas' Value. It 
is call'd an Eiderdown Quilt or Covering ; a Bale of Crocus for Bread 
Bags, 7 or 800 yds., yd. wd. ; 1 ton Good Sound Cheshire cheese ; 10 
chests Good Florence Oyle. Send none but new. If the Brig't goes to 
New Castle pray order us from thence Ten Groce of best Quart Cham- 
paign Bottles for own use, to be well packed in Basketts." The old 
gentleman never saw these articles, for he died of apoplexy, Aug. I, 
1764. To John Hancock his uncle left the greater part of his fortune 
of 70,000 pounds sterling, and the business. In a letter written Aug. 17, 
1764, J. H. says: "I continue in the same store, and propose carrying 
•on the same business as with my late Uncle, my myself, of which shall 
write you more hereafter." It is evident from the books and papers 
-which remain, that John Hancock, who was only twenty-seven when he 

47 



succeeded to the large fortune and business of his uncle, was a keen and 
able merchant. He says in one letter (Nov. 23, 1764) : "I observe you 
have sold the oyl pr. Hunter, the White & Brown well sold, but wonder 
there should be such a difference in the Price of whale oyl between your 
house & Mr. Lane's. Mr. Rowe of this Place owner of Capt. Hunter, 
shipd some whale oyl at same time of Hunter, and has an account of 
Sales of it at ±23.15 and yours only £21, the difference is a handsome 
Profit, but make no doubt you did your best." 

Again in same year: "I would also just mention that many things 
shipt on board Boston Packett to Xewbury, Salem. &c especially little 
things are a loss to the Ship as that freight is seldom obtained, that the 
fewer of these the better. I wonder that Rotch & others should have 
Hemp on board the Brig Lydia and mine omitted, but I will say no more 
of this." The next year he writes to the same correspondents: "I 
ree'd the things you ship'd me by Hatch tho' some of them much out 
of time, say the cheese & oyl, which were to have come in the Brigt, the 
cheese I lose money by, Having sold it for less than the first cost & think 
it Extreme high charged, at least much higher than others had it in the 
same ship. Mr. Caleb Blanchard had a parcell at the same time from 
Champion & Haley at 33/ & you have charged mine 40/. The difference 
is a good profit. I think I have a right to Expect my Goods on as good 
terms as any one whatever. & unless I can have them so, its not worth 
my attention. You must not let other houses out do you, why should 
there be such a difference in that Article from your two houses? Do think 
of it & if its a mistake give credit for the over charge." Again, under 
date 1765: "I am amazed you could send me a Trunk of such silks & 
charge to my account without my order. I opened them, and they are 
such colors as would not Sell here to the end of time. I can't think you 
chose them, or ever saw them, they are such Kinds of silks as we never 
dealt in, and under the present situation dont intend to be concerned in, 
besides their cost with the additional duty on each piece here is more 
than they would fetch. They are very ill chosen, extreme bad colours, 
very high charged, and article in no demand here. I have therelore 
come to a resolution to return them to you by Marshall." 

To a firm in Madeira ( 1768), "L am now, therefore, to desire you 
will please to send me by the return of this Vessell on the first good op- 
portunity to this place two pipes of the very best Madeira for my own 
Table. I don't stand at any price, let it be good, I like a rich wine." 
He little thought into what trouble and vexation this order would bring 
him. but of that anon. 

One of the chief articles of export was whale oil. Hancock's great 

48 



competitor in this trade was William Rotch, a Quaker of Nantucket, a 
large shipowner and merchant. 

When on a visit to Boston in 1765, William Rotch called on Han- 
cock at his office, and received an invitation to dinner, which was ac- 
cepted, in order to have a quiet talk, the object of which appears to have 
been to devise some plan by which these two merchant magnates might 
control the oil market for their common benefit. How far arrangements 
were carried out we do not know, but in November of 1766, Hancock 
writes to his London Agents : "I have now so well established in those 
concerns in the Wliale Fishery that I can have the refusal of almost all 
their oyl & I think Mr. R — h [Rotch] has had small success in purchas- 
ing & by far the greatest quantity of oyl will be in your hands which is 
my aim. 

"I am now fitting up the ship Thomas with oyl. My view in 

this is to prevent their purchasing and to hinder what oyl I can going 
into other hands, as by large quantities centering with you, you will be 
better able to command a price. . . I can't but think you will have 
it in your power almost to obtain your own price for it." There is noth- 
ing new even in oil. 

But it is time to turn to John Hancock as a public man — 

Thomas Hancock had been for many years one of the Boston Select- 
men, and it was natural that the vacancy occasioned by his death should 
be filled by the nephew, and John Hancock was chosen to the office, 
March, 1765, and from that time until his death, nearly thirty years later, 
he was prominent in the public service, perhaps without intermission the 
holder of some important public office. 

But troublous times were at hand, and John Hancock's correspond- 
ence is full of the Stamp Act. By his own vessel, "The Liberty," he 
writes, Aug. 22, 1765, to his London agents : "I refer you to the Newspa- 
pers for an account of the proceed'gs here by which you will see the Gen- 
eral dissatisfaction here on account of the Stamp Act, which I pray may 
never be carried in Execution, it is a Cruel hardship upon us & unless 
we are Redressd we must be Ruin'd, Our Stamp officer has resigned. 
I hope the same Spirit will prevail throughout the whole Continent." 
Again, September 11: "I cannot write now, we are terribly confused 
here. If the Stamp Act takes place we are a gone people." About 
two weeks later: "I have receivd your favour by Capt. Holme who is 
arriv'd here with the most disagreeable Commodity (say Stamps) that 
were ever imported into this country & what if carry'd into Execution 
will entirely Stagnate Trade here, for it is universally determined here 
never to submit to it, and the principal merchts will by no means carry on 

49 



Business under a Stamp, we are in the utmost Confusion here and 
shall be more so after the first of November & nothing but the repeal 
of the act will righten, the Consequence of its taking place here will 
be bad, & attended with many troubles, & I believe may sav more 
fatal to you than us. For God's Sake use your interest to relieve us. I 
dread the event." Again, October 14, 1765: "Nothing but the Repeal of 
the act can retrieve our Trade again. . . If not Repeal Yl you may 
bid Adieu to Remittances for the past Goods, and Trade in future, your 
Debts cannot be Recover'd here for we shall have no Courts of Justice 
after the 1st Novr & I now Tell you, & you will find it come to pass 
that the people of this Country will never Suffer themselves to be made 
slaves of by a Submission to that D — d act But I shall now open to 
you my own Determinations. ... I am determin'd as soon as T 
know that they are Resolv'd to insist on this act to Sell my Stock in 
Trade & Shut up my Warehouse Doors Thus much I told our Govr 
the other day, & is what I am absolutely Determined to abide by. 
I am very sorry for this occasion of writing so boldly, & of being ob- 
ligd to come to such Resolutions, but the Safety of myself the Coun- 
try I have the honor to be a native of require some Resolutions, I am 
free & Determined to be so I will not willingly & quietly Subject myself 
to Slavery." 

This long letter from which these extracts are taken concludes with 
the following postscript: "This Letter I propose to remain in my Letter 
Book as a Standing monument to posterity & my children in particular, 
that I by no means consented to a Submission to this Cruel Act, & that 
my best Representations were not wantg. in the matter." 

When it is remembered that John Hancock was the richest man in 
Boston and had a large and lucrative business, such a stand as he took 
means something. But we cannot go farther into the details of the 
Stamp Act struggle than to state that Hancock took an active part in 
all the public measures against the Act, and in the petitions for its re- 
peal. 

The Stamp Act was repealed March 18, 1766, but it was two months 
before a copy of the Act of Repeal reached Boston, and it was in one of 
Hancock's own vessels that a copy came. The celebration in Boston was 
enthusiastic, though Hancock simply says in one of his letters, "Our re- 
joicing has been conducted in a very Decent, Reputable manner, & I 
hope now peace and harmony will prevail. My best influence and en- 
deavors to that purpose shall be used." 

Hancock's next step in public life was to be chosen one of the four 
representatives of Boston to the General Court (or Legislature) for 

50 



1766- 1767, and it was a curious thing that one of the first acts of the 
Court was to pass a bill taxing imports ; but as they taxed themselves it 
was all right. The estimation in which he was held is shown by the 
fact that, though but thirty-five years old, he was appointed chairman of 
Committees, or practically leader of the House. That his course in the 
General Court was satisfactory to his constituents is indicated by his re- 
election in 1767, every vote being cast for him, while his three fellow- 
candidates received: Samuel Adams, 574; Thomas Cushing, 557, and 
James Otis, 575. These men certainly would have formed a noble 
representation for any community. It is not possible to follow in de- 
tail those days of unrest in Boston. But all through, Hancock was on 
the popular side, and while he deprecated violence, he yielded to none 
in his efforts to have the British troops removed. He was one of the 
Selectmen who objected to the quartering of the troops in public build- 
ings ; he was chosen a member of the Governor's Council, though his ap- 
pointment was vetoed by Governor Bernard. His sloop "Liberty" ar- 
rived about this time (1768) with a shipment of Madeira wine, a part 
of which has been referred to. A portion was surreptitiously carried 
ashore while the Custom House officers were being entertained or con- 
fined in the cabin. For this, but chiefly on a charge of false entries of 
the cargo, Hancock, who is not shown to have been cognizant of the 
matter, was arrested and was prosecuted on many charges, the penalties, 
it is said, amounting to 100,000 pounds sterling. An entry of the goods 
was made the morning after the occurrence, but was not credited by 
the officials. The vessel itself was seized and taken across the harboi. 
Hancock resisted the claims and employed John Adams as his counsel. 
The case dragged on until it was settled by the battle of Lexington. 

This action of the government only increased Hancock's popularity, 
and he was again chosen to the General Court by the largest vote. The 
merchants of Boston, and Hancock among them, agreed on non-importa- 
tion measures, though his patriotism threatened to ruin his own business. 
It has been well said, "As a citizen, patriot, and true officer he was doing 
all in his power to bring about desired ends by preventing importation. 
As a merchant he was obliged to see these acts destroy what little busi- 
ness he had left, and he was bringing trouble on his foreign agents and 
fast friends." 

Hancock was present at the great meeting of citizens in the Old 
South Meeting House after the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770. He 
recognized that the mob had acted in a lawless manner, and yet sym- 
pathized with the spirit which animated them. He approved of the 
resolutions "that nothing could be expected to restore peace and prevent 

51 



carnage, but an immediate removal of the troops." He also was one of 
the Committee of Fifteen, headed by Samuel Adams, that carried the 
resolution to Governor Hutchinson. And when Hutchinson's agree- 
ment to remove one regiment from the city was reported to the town 
meeting, he was again one of the committee to reply to the Governor that 
nothing but "a total and immediate removal of all the troops" would be 
satisfactory. A request with which the Governor felt wisest to comply. 
All through those troublous days Hancock took an active part in the 
resistance to the demands of the British government. It was at one of 
the meetings of the Committees of Public Service that Hancock ex- 
claimed, "Burn Boston and make John Hancock a beggar, if the public 
good requires it.*' It should be remembered that Hancock's wealth con- 
sisted mainly of houses and land in Boston, and ships on the sea, both 
of which were liable to easy seizure and confiscation by the Crown. It 
is difficult to understand the boldness of his language, and the daring 
of his personal service unless he were a true patriot. At the time of 
the tea excitement, he was again on the popular side, and "offered one 
of his vessels, free of charge, to reship what tea was stored in Boston."" 
And he certainly was cognizant of the projected "tea-party," and 
though not taking a personal share, gave his aid and countenance to it. 
Benjamin Franklin writes to Thomas Cushing, London, March 22 r 
1774. "It is talked here that authentic advices are received assuring 
Government that Messrs. Hancock and Adams were seen at the Head of 
the Mob that destroy'd the Tea, openly encouraging them." (Smyth, 
Life and Works of Franklin, 6: 223.) 

In March, 1774, Hancock was appointed public orator for the an- 
niversary of the "Boston Massacre." Samuel Adams says of him on 
this occasion, he "was a graceful, easy speaker, self-possessed and digni- 
fied in action, and thoroughly understood by an audience of his native 
townsmen." (Wells' Life, 2: 138.)* John Adams speaks of it, as "an 
elegant, a pathetic, a spirited performance." " Many of the sentiments 
came with great propriety from him, his invective particularly against 
a preference of riches to virtue came with singular dignity and grace." 
(Works, 2: 2^2.) Let us hear one or two sentences from this oration, 
remembering under what circumstances they were uttered — with a hos- 
tile British Governor, and officers and troops nearby. 

"Some boast of being friends of government ! I am a friend to 
righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of 

* Wells claims that Samuel Adams was the real author of this oration, but he 
does not show more than the fact that Hancock talked over the matter with Adams. 

52 



reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity 
to tyranny; and here suffer me to ask what tenderness, what regard 
have the rulers of Great Britain manifested in their late transactions, for 
the security of the persons or property of the inhabitants of these col- 
onies? Or rather, what have they omitted doing to destroy that security? 
They have usurped the right of ruling us, in all cases whatever, by arbi- 
trary laws ; they have exercised this pretended right by imposing a tax 
upon us without our consent ; and lest we should show some reluctance 
at parting with our property, their fleets and armies are sent to enforce 
their mad and tyrannical pretensions." Referring to the "massacre" 
itself, he says : "Let this sad tale of death never be told without a tear ; 
let not the heaving bosom cease to burn with a manly indignation at the 
relation of it through the long tracks of future time ; let every parent 
tell the shameful story to listening children, till tears of pity glisten 
in their eyes, or boiling passion shakes their tender frames." ("John 
Hancock, His Book," Appendix, p. 257.) 

The Boston Port Bill took effect June 1, 1774. Of course it wa& 
ruinous to Hancock's business. The public irritation was increased by 
the coming of more troops to enforce the bill. Samuel Adams, John 
Hancock, and James Otis waited on Governor Gage and asked him to 
•call a meeting of the General Court, which he refused to do. The Court 
then came together without the official notice, and sat with closed doors. 

Of these days, John Adams, like the rest of the family, never given 
to over much praise, writes : "Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and James 
Otis were the three most essential characters and Great Britain knew it 
though America does not. Great and important and excellent charac- 
ters aroused and excited by these arose in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New 
York, and South Carolina, and in all the other States ; but these were 
the first movers — the most constant, steady, persevering springs and 
agents, and most disinterested sufferers, and firmest pillars of the whole 
^Revolution." (Works, 10: 163.) 

In October, 1774, the members of the General Court resolved them- 
selves into a Provincial Congress. "Hancock was unanimously elected 
President from among the dignified representatives there assembled." 
He was again elected President of the second Provincial Congress of 
Massachusetts. 

But let us turn, for a moment, from public matters to those of a more 
personal nature. It is unnecesary to do more than say that Hancock's 
^business was almost at a stand-still, for independently of restraints on 
trade, his attention was almost wholly given to the public service. Still 
he found time to prosecute objects of a tender character. 

53 



Judge Edmund Quincy was born in 1703, graduated from Harvard 
in 1722, and had a reputation for integrity and talent. He was a personal 
friend of Benjamin Franklin. He married Elizabeth Wendell. Dorothy, 
the youngest of their ten children, was born May 10, 1748. I believe 
the old homestead in Quincy is still standing. Judge Quincy was a 
highly cultivated man, and no household in Massachusetts was more 
refined or cultured. Here John Adams, as a young man, was a fre- 
quent visitor of the four attractive daughters. Dorothy was the most 
charming — bright, quick, good-looking, she had no lack of admirers, but 
of all the visitors at her father's house, John Hancock, though he was 
ten years older than herself, was the favored one, and they became en- 
gaged. The match was furthered as much as possible by Madame Han- 
cock, the aunt of John Hancock, who kept house for him in the spacious 
and elegant mansion her husband had built. 

Affairs in Boston became more and more critical. In March, 1775, 
Hancock's fence was hacked by British officers, and his property was 
more than once threatened. The Provincial Congress was to meet 
March 22. Hancock was president and went to Concord, where it was 
to sit. Whether he returned to Boston we do not know, but it is more 
likely that he made his home with the Rev. Jonas Clark, a cousin, who 
occupied the old Hancock mansion at Lexington. Meantime his aunt, 
Madame Hancock, was uneasy and reluctant to remain in Boston, not 
knowing what might be done to the house of such a marked man as 
Hancock. So, persuading Judge Quincy to let his daughter Dorothy 
accompany her, they went to Mr. Clark's at Lexington. Dorothy Quincy, 
it is said, expecting to return in two or three days, took few things with 
her ; but she did not see the inside of Boston for three years. 

Hancock has been charged by some with taking the stand he did 
from unworthy motives — but the British Government evidently consider- 
ed he was in earnest. As early as February, 1775, one of his friends 
in London wrote: "There is gone down to Sheerness seventy-eight thou- 
sand guns and bayonets, to be sent to America to be put into the hands of 
the negroes, the Roman Catholics and the Canadians, and all the wicked 
means on earth used to subdue the colonists. I don't write tHis to alarm 
you, but you must not any longer be deceived. Orders have now gone 
out to take up Messrs. Hancock, Adams, Williams, Otis, and six of the 
head men in Boston. I have now a copy of the proceedings before me. 
My heart aches for Mr. Hancock. Send off expresses immediately that 

they intend to seize his estate and have his fine house for General ^ w 

("Dorothy Quincy," p. 54.) 

But to go back to Lexington — 

54 



Samuel Adams was also a guest of Mr. Jonas Clark. We can easily 
picture the anxious little company in April, 1779. The host and his 
wife, Madame Hancock and Dorothy Quincy, now a young woman 01 
twenty-seven, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, all of them eagerly and 
anxiously discussing the state of affairs, and what had best be done. 

It is needless before this audience to do more than refer to Lexington 
and Concord. We know the story well — the determination of the Brit- 
ish to seize the stores, and apprehend the two leaders, Adams and Han- 
cock; the "midnight ride of Paul Revere''; "the embattled farmers'' 
"who fired the shot heard round the world." Hancock and Adams 
meanwhile were induced by their friends to keep away from the con- 
flict, to withdraw from the Clark mansion, and take refuge elsewhere, 
as their services would be far more valuable in the council than in the 
field. 

It is said that before they left, Dorothy Quincy expressed her inten- 
tion of rejoining her father in Boston. "No madam," said her fiance, 
"You shall not return as long as there is a British bayonet left in Bos- 
ton." But the young lady had a mind of her own, and replied, "Recol- 
lect, Mr. Hancock, I am not under your authority yet; I shall go to my 
father's house to-morrow." Madame Hancock now interfered and 
calmed the troubled waters, and before long Dorothy Quincy, with 
Madame Hancock, followed her lover to where he was concealed, and 
later the two accompanied John Hancock as far as Fairfield, Connecti- 
cut, on his way to Philadelphia, where he was to take his seat in the 
famous Congress of 1775, to which, with Samuel Adams, and others, he 
had been chosen a representative. 

The feeling in New England toward Great Britain was well known ; 
that in New York was not. The Massachusetts and Connecticut dele- 
gates, as they approached New York City, felt somewhat doubtful of 
their reception. A letter from John Hancock to Dorothy Quincy, tells 
how they were received. "I arrived," he writes, "yesterday [May 6, 
I 775l at Kings Bridge, where I found the Delegates of Massachusetts 
& Connecticut, with a number of gentlemen from New York. 
When we arrived within three miles of the cfty, we were met by the 
Grenadier company and regiment of the city militia under arms, Gentle- 
men in carriages and on horseback and many thousand of persons on 
foot, the roads filled with people and the greatest cloud of Dust I ever 
saw. . . When I got within a mile of the city my carriage was 
stopt, and persons appearing with proper Harnesses insisted upon taking 
out my Horses and Dragging me into and through the City, a circum- 
stance I would not have had taken place upon any consideration, not 

.55 



being fond of such parade." ("John Hancock, His Book,' 7 p. 198.) 

He goes on to say that finally he insisted on having this business 
stopped. The Massachusetts delegates were greatly pleased with their 
reception in New York, which, as Hancock remarked in the letter just 
quoted, was "a sad mortification to the Tories." 

Arrived at Philadelphia, he met old friends, among them Benjamin 
Franklin and George Washington. It was during the early part of this 
Congress that "General Gage at Boston issued a proclamation affirming 
pardon to all rebels, except Samuel Adams, and John Hancock "whose 
offences are two flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration 
than of condign punishment." 

The President of the Congress, Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, re- 
signed and John Hancock was chosen in his place. Benjamin Harrison, 
when conducting him to the chair, is said to have remarked: "We will 
show mother Britain how little we care for her by making a Massachu- 
setts man our President, whom she has excluded from pardon & offered 
a ransom for his head." 

Hancock was by no means an inexperienced presiding officer, ixnd 
this, together with the fact that Virginia had had the office, doubtless 
led to his selection, for the office was due Massachusetts, and Hancock 
was her most distinguished representative, and well known by reputation 
throughout the colonies. He was at this time thirty-eight years old. 

Dorothy Quincy meanwhile remained at Fairfield, Connecticut, and 
a number of John Hancock's letters to her have, by strange chance, been 
preserved. Were it not for the light they throw on his character, and 
upon the customs of the times, we could wish they had been destroyed, 
for it is almost profanation to read that which was intended for one 
• eye alone. It seems Dorothy was a poor correspondent, for he chides 
her again and again for not replying. "Be not afraid of me. I want 
long letters. I will forgive the past if you will mend in future." He 
says, and, as if to melt the heart of the young woman, he tells what he 
sis sending her. Most young ladies now-a-days would rather wonder a*" 
such gifts: 

"I have sent you," he says, "by Doer Church, in a paper Box directed 
to you, the following things, for your acceptance, & which I do insist 
you wear, if you do not, I shall think the Donor is the objection. 

2 pair white silk j stockings which 

4 pr. white thread j I think will fit you. 

1 pr. Black Satin ) shoes, the other 

1 p. Black Calem Co f shall be sent when done. 



I very pretty light Hat. 



56 



i neat x\iry Summer Cloak. 
2 Caps, 
i Farm. 

I wish these may please you." ("John Hancock, His Book." p. 203.) 
In August, 1775, John Hancock left Philadelphia and hastened to 
Fairfield, where the wedding took place, August 28, 1775. The affair 
naturally excited great interest and a number of contemporary news- 
papers have accounts of the ceremony and accompanying festivities. 

The married couple left immediately .for Philadelphia, which, mak- 
ing, it appears, no stops except at night and possibly Sunday, they 
reached in seven days, September 5. John Adams thus speaks of Mrs. 
Hancock in Philadelphia : "Among a Hundred men, almost, at this 
house she lives and behaves with modesty and decency, dignity and dis- 
cretion, 1 assure you. Her behavior is easy and genteel. She avoids 
talking upon politics. In large and mix'd company she is unusually 
silent, as a lady ought to be." ("Dorothy Quincy," p. 96.) 

The position of the President of Congress was no sinecure. Besides 
presiding at the sessions of Congress, Hancock had to sign all commis- 
sions, to attend to an extensive correspondence, and to promulgate al- 
most countless military orders, and sign bills of credit, etc. In all this 
work Mrs. Hancock greatly aided him. 

When the time came for choosing a commander-in-chief of the 
American army, it is said that Hancock was an eager aspirant for the 
position, and that considerable "wire-pulling," as we should say, was 
employed on his side. It can hardly be doubted that he did entertain 
the idea, but on Washington's appointment he was one of the first to 
congratulate him. 

When Washington wrote to Congress of the prospect of a bombard- 
ment of Boston, and the matter was under consideration by that body, 
Hancock left the chair and said, "It is true, sir, nearly all the property 
I have in the world is in houses and other real estate in the town of Bos- 
ton ; but if the expulsion of the British army from it — and the liberties 
of our country require their being burnt to ashes — issue the order for 
that purpose immediately." ("Dorothy Quincy," p. 102.) He also 
wrote to Washington at the same time: "May God crown your attempt 
with success. I most heartily wish it, though individually I may be the 
greatest sufferer." (Ibid. p. 102.) The bombardment did not take 
place, as we know, but that does not lessen Hancock's patriotism. 

Soon after Washington gained Boston, he wrote personally to Han- 
cock, and said : "I have a particular pleasure in being able to inform you, 
sir, that your house has received no damage worth mentioning. Your 

57 



furniture is in tolerable order, and the family fixtures are all left entire 
and untouched." ("John Hancock, His Book," p. 209.) 

When Congress summoned" Washington to Philadelphia to consult 
on the state of affairs. Hancock wrote inviting him and his wife to make 
their home with him. and not only that, but urged his acceptance be- 
cause he had heard that Mrs. Washington planned being inoculated for 
the smallpox while in Philadelphia, and he was sure she would have 
better attendance during the progress of the disease. 

The story of the decision to. declare the Independence of the Colonies 
has been too often told to repeat here. On the eventful day, July 4, 
the document was signed only by the President of the Congress, John 
Hancock, and the Secretary, Charles Thomson. It was not until Au- 
gust that others affixed their signatures. It has been claimed that it 
savored of egotism for Hancock to sign in such large characters, but 
comparison shows that his signature on that document is but little, if 
any, larger than his usual one in his private correspondence. The story 
goes that he remarked after signing, ''There, John Bull can read that 
without spectacles. Now let him double his reward." All through his 
official correspondence of Hancock there breathes the strongest spirit of 
patriotism, but we must forbear quotation. 

Hancock continued as President of Congress, though at times he 
seems to have suffered greatly from the gout. In October, 1777, he 
writes : "I have come to a fixed determination to return to Boston for a 
short time, & I have notified Congress in form of my intention." In 
his address to Congress, he says : "My health being much inpaired I 
find some relaxation absolutely necessary after such constant applica- 
tion. I must therefor request your Indulgence for leave of absence for 
two months." Though this was nominally an application for leave, it 
resulted in resignation, for Hancock never returned, though he was in 
his absence re-elected to the office of President, which he declined. 

Only a few days after his return a town meeting was held in Bos- 
ton, December 8, 1777, the record of which reads: "The inhabitants hav- 
ing brought in their votes for a Moderator, upon sorting them it ap- 
peared that the Honorable John Hancock, Esq., was unanimously 
chosen Moderator of this meeting." This indicates the estimation in 
which he was held by his fellow-townsmen. At the same meeting a 
resolution was carried expressing the thanks of the town to John Han- 
cock for a gift of 150 cords of wood to the poor of the town in a time 
of distress. Shortly after this he was again unanimously chosen Mod- 
erator. At the next election for representatives to the General Court, 
he received the highest vote. The next year, 1778, Hancock undertook 

58 



a new service. He had been appointed Major General of the Massa- 
chusetts Militia, and as such took part in an enterprise, intended to aid 
Count D'Estaing in his movement against Newport, Rhode Island. 
The movement, however, was not successful. When the French allies 
visited Boston in 1779, Hancock gave a banquet to five hundred of them 
at his own expense. 

Massachusetts, in 1780, took the steps needful to establish herself 
firmly as a State by framing and adopting a Constitution. Of course 
Hancock was a member of the Convention, and on the adoption of the 
instrument of government was elected first Governor of the State of 
Massachusetts. 

The Rev. Samuel Cooper, a well-known citizen of Boston, wrote to 
Benjamin Franklin, then in London, a letter dated Boston, September 
8, 1780, in which he says : 

"Last Monday all the Towns of this State assembled for the choice 
of a Governor, Lt. Governor, and Senators, according to the new Con- 
stitution. In this town [Boston] Mr. S. Adams had one vote for Gov- 
ernor, Mr. Bowdoin 64, Mr. Hancock 853. ... It was argued 
in his Favor at the Elections that he took an early, open, and decided 
Part in the opposition to the oppressive Measures of Great Britain, 
that in this he generously risqued his Life and Fortune ; and that it was 
expected that we should appear to be the same People we were when 
the Controversy began by giving our first Honors to those who dis- 
tinguished themselves at that Time, and that a contrary Conduct would 
disappoint our Friends in Europe and gratify our Enemies." (Smyth, 
"Life and Works of Franklin," 8: 182.) 

To this Franklin replied: "Passy, December 2, 1780, Please make my 
Compliments of Congratulation acceptable to Mr. Hancock on his be- 
ing chosen the first Governor of his free countrymen. I am persuaded 
he will fill the Seat with Propriety & Dignity." (Ibid, ibid.) 

To this office he was annually re-elected until 1785, and then after 
an interim of two years, when he declined to be a candidate, he was 
chosen annually from 1787 to 1793. These years were full of incident; 
they cover the period of adaptation of the commonwealth to the new po- 
litical conditions, and it speaks well for Hancock that a majority of the 
citizens of that State kept him in office so long. The last important ser- 
vice of Hancock was acting as presiding officer of the Constitutional 
Convention of 1787, when Massachusetts was to decide whether she 
would cast her vote in favor of the Federal Union, a conclusion which 
would doubtless decide whether the new Constitution would go into 
effect. It is difficult for us of this day fully to understand the fear 

59 



•which so many able and patriotic men then felt of a strong central gov- 
ernment. It has been claimed that at first Hancock was of these. It is 
certain that until the meeting of the Convention he avoided expressing 
an opinion, but if he did hold the views referred to he was in good com- 
pany, for even Samuel Adams was at least lukewarm in his support, and 
Patrick Henry strongly opposed the plan. Hancock's support is said 
to have been gained by some political bargaining. Bancroft, however, 
says, unhesitatingly: "There is no ground whatever for an insinuation 
that Hancock was at any time opposed to an approval of the Constitu- 
tion. His conduct on that occasion was, from beginning to end, con- 
sistent ; and so wise that the afterthought of the most skilful caviller 
cannot point out where it could be improved." ("History of the Con- 
stitution," 2: 258.) His advice in substance was, adopt the Constitu- 
tion and propose amendments, trusting that they will in substance be 
adopted. This wise advice was followed and the result justified the 
action, for the first ten amendments practically cover the points made by 
the Massachusetts Convention. A doggerel verse of the day thus refers 
to this great occasion : 

" The 'vention did in Boston meet, 
But State house couldn't hold 'em 
So then they went to Federal Street, 
And there the truth was told 'em. 

" They every morning went to prayer, 
And then began disputing, 
Till opposition silenced were, 
By arguments refuting. 

" Then Squire Hancock like a man 
Who dearly loves the nation, 
By a conciliatory plan. 
Prevented much vexation. 

" He made a woundy Federal speech, 
With sense and elocution ; 
And then the 'vention did beseech, 
T' adopt the Constitution. 

" The question being outright put, 
Each voted independent, 
The Federalists agreed to adopt, 
And then propose amendment. 

60 



" The other party, seeing then 

The people were against them. 
Agreed like honest, faithful men, 
To mix in peace amongst them." 

(Loring, ''Hundred Boston Orators," 112.) 

The last time Hancock comes into special prominence was on the oc- 
casion of President Washington's visit to Boston, when it would seem,, 
that feeling the importance of the State, he expected that Washington 
would call on him as Governor first. This Washington flatly refused to 
do. Hancock, persuaded by his friends, after making his gout an excuse,, 
yielded the point and made his call on the President. In 1793 he died 
suddenly, and the State government insisted on a public funeral, though 
Hancock had expressed a wish for a private one. Mrs. Hancock reluct- 
antly submitted, and, though she had been assured the State would bear 
the expense, had herself to pay the bills for the same, amounting to 
$1,800. 

I have not said much concerning the attacks on Hancock, but have 
preferred to let facts lead you to draw your own conclusions. He had 
his faults — he was ambitious ; he was proud of his position, his wealth, 
his personal appearance, and it is not to be wondered at that he could 
sometimes with reason be called vain, but the surprise is that he was not 
more so. That he was generous, warm-hearted, charitable, is incontest- 
able — that most of his acts of generosity and patriotism were done from 
mean and sordid motives is inconceivable. Most of his contemporary 
detractors seem to have been moved by envy, and the later ones have 
been ignorant of the facts. Before he was enfeebled by disease, he was 
handsome in face, tall, and well proportioned in figure. His manners 
were those of the old school, dignified and gracious. He loved style and 
his large mansion was richly furnished. When he rode out on public 
occasions he went in a coach drawn by six horses, attended by servants 
in livery. At home he would wear a red velvet cap, lined with white lin- 
en, a blue damask gown, lined with silk, a white stock, white satin em- 
broidered waistcoat, black silk small-clothes, white silk stockings, and red 
morocco slippers. Abroad, the cap would be exchanged for a wig, the 
dressing gown for a scarlet coat richly embroidered in lace or silver, or 
both, and with ruffles on the sleeves. If he lived handsomely he shared his 
fortune with others, for his benefactions to the poor, to needy churches, 
to individuals, were numberless. It has been said that Boston never knew 
a greater benefactor. His patriotism is said to have cost him in cash 
over $100,000, to say nothing of the ruin of his business. His home life 
seems to have been admirable. He had two children, one, a girl, who 

61 



died in infancy ; the other, John George Washington Hancock, died un- 
der distressing circumstances — the little fellow of seven was anxious to 
skate; a friend gave him a pair; he tried them on the icy pavement, and 
falling, received injuries from which he soon died. His widow several 
years after Hancock's death, married James Scott, one of her husband's 
trusted Captains and friends, and out-living him, died in 1830, an old 
lady of eighty-three. 

If in this ratiier rambling account I have been able to bring before 
you, even an outline sketch of this strong, picturesque, patriotic man of 
Revolutionary days. I shall be pleased. If to this be added that I have 
done something to reinstate him in your good graces I shall be more 
than satisfied. 



NOTE. 

A few paragraphs in the preceding paper are taken from a briefer 
paper read by the author on a different occasion. A very few which 
were omitted in the reading, for the sake of brevity, have been restored. 

Chief Authorities. 

A. E. Brown, "John Hancock, His Book," Boston, 1898. 

Ellen C. D. Q. Woodbury, "Dorothy Quincy, Wife of John Han- 
cock." Washington, 1901. 

C. F. Adams, "Works of John Adams," Boston, 1850-1856. 

J. S. Barry, "History of Massachusetts," Boston, 1855-1857. 

J. Winsor, "Narrative and Critical History of America," Boston, 
1 886- 1 889. 

J. Winsor. "Memorial History of Boston," Boston, 1880-1881. 

H. C. Lodge, "Boston," New York. 1891. 

W. V. Wells, "Life of Samuel Adams," Boston, 1865. 

J. S. Loring. "The Hundred Boston Orators," Boston. 

S. Higginson, "Ten Chapters in the Life of John Hancock," New 
York, 1867. ( Reprint.) 

A. Oilman in Atlantic Monthly, vol. XT- 

"Journals of Congress," 1775, 1776, 1783. 

Manuscript letters and papers of John Hancock in the "Charles 
Roberts Collection of Autographs," Haverford College; also some in 
the possession of the author. 



M 



OFFICERS 19Q7-8. 



PRESIDENT, 

William A. Marble. 

FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT, 

Hon. Cornelius A. Pugsley. 

SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT, 

Richard T. Davies. 

THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT, 

Newell B. Woodworth. 

SECRETARY, 

Louis Annin Ames. 

TREASURER, 

James de la Montanye. 

REGISTRAR, 

Teunis D. Huntting. 

HISTORIAN, 

Josiah C. Pumpelly. 

CHAPLAIN, 

Rev. Charles L. Goodell, D. D. 

MANAGERS, 

William H. Kelly, John Bowes Cox, George H. Denny, 

Wm. W. J. Warren, Dr. Israel C. Jones, Walter B. Hopping, 

Capt. Chas. A. DuBois, Theodore Gilman, Hon. Warren Higley, 

Col. Wm. A. Crombie, John H. Burroughs, Geo. D. Bangs, 

Wm. E. F. Smirh, Wm. S. Kitchell, Trueman G. Avery, 

Rufus I. Shea, Martin S. Allen, Fred'k W. Swan, 

Wm. M. Crane, John DeW. Mowris, Dr. Earl H. King. 

FINANCE COMMITTEE, 

Capt. Charles A. DuBois, Chairman, 
Rufus I. Shea, John H. Burroughs. 

E XTERTA t X M ENT COM M ITTEE, 

Dr. Frank E. Caldwell, Chairman, 
Arthur C. Todd, Grant Wayne, 

Joseph I. Barker, Withington Robinson. 

Herbert S. Kellogg. 

MKMRERSHIP COMMITTEE, 

Alson B. Ostrander, Chairman. \ 

George R. Tompkins, Rufus G. Shirley, 

Edwin L. Allen, Cleveland F. Pratt. 



nil 



STAT£ 




